


i'll find you again.

by lifeincantos



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam (Voltron) has PTSD, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Anastasia AU, F/M, Fictional politics, Keith (Voltron) has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, M/M, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, be nice to them they're struggling :C, brief mentions of war and military police violence, broganes, extremely tender, fairy tale romance, in order to make room for the, very light on the
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 56,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21635062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeincantos/pseuds/lifeincantos
Summary: Nine years ago, three nations were reduced to shadows of their former selves after an attack that shook the foundations of history. In the interim, everyone has done their best to get by amidst the rumor, the legend, the mystery of a lost prince.(This is the part where an orphan and a pair of conmen try to get their wish.)(the anastasia au.)
Relationships: Adam & Sam Holt, Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Allura & Keith (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Sam Holt & Shiro
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	1. act one.

Once upon a time, Winter comes in a sudden flurry of snow.

The cold has been rolling through for some time now, but this is the first true snow of winter. It comes quiet and quieter, and then as the sky darkens and day slips into night, the world is muffled and silent and still as the sky opens up. The windows of the palace have long frosted over, and now the lights from the lampposts outside are capped by halos of flurries and muted in their incandescence.

That is where Keith sits: on his knees in the cushioned alcove under the large, faceted window, hands and nose pressed against the glass. Indoors there is warmth enough but this close to the windowpane, his breath fogs against it and his small hands leave prints against the chill. Not one person has been successful in drawing Keith away from his spot thus far, and it is not for lack of volunteers willing to try to wrangle him into bed. In all fairness, the maids and valets hardly stood a chance; Keith has been adept at outmaneuvering every employee of the estate for at least two years now, and with the dazzling sight of the coming winter as incentive, he will not be budged. The only surprise had come when Keith hadn't heeded the request of his grandmother, slipping back out of bed the moment Natsuki had left the room.

With a gentle smile, she had gone down to hover at the edge of the doorway to the main hall, unwilling to rejoin the party still underway, lest she be tangled up in the formalities of state once more. But she hadn't needed to worry – the moment she approached the threshold, she caught the eye of precisely the person she'd been after.

Takashi did not need to be told what she needed him for. When he moves to greet her (as gracefully as he can; he holds himself with the dignity that is expected of him but he is still thirteen and growing into his body) he only needs to glance at the set of her expression, her careful mix of concern and amusement, before he nods his head once, respectfully, and leaves the party behind for a more important task. Takashi navigates the halls of the Obsidian Palace as naturally as breathing, taking the stairs two at a time up to the second floor when he is sure that there is no one watching him.

Keith is still pressed up against the window when Takashi peaks through the door, and he remains there, unmoving and unblinking for as long as he believes he is alone. Even from this angle, in the dark of the night, there is wonder etched into his gaze, glittering with a kind of fervor kindled to life by the scene outside. Takashi stays where he is for a moment or two, watching his brother watch the snow-covered world beyond, then moves silently over the threshold and across the room.

His steps are quiet enough, and Keith's awe strong enough, that he does not notice Takashi until the shadow falls across him. There is protest in his expression when he turns – protest that dies as soon as recognition comes, lips parted even when the argument dies in the back of his throat. For his part, Takashi keeps expression smoothed into neutrality as he stands over Keith, waits until his brother sits properly before sitting beside him. Here, it is easy to feel the chill that radiates from the glass of the window.

Silence blooms between them, but it is not long before Keith looks down at his knees and his mouth pulls into a frown at the side.

“You were supposed to be at the party,” he says, quiet and mulish, but less so than he had been with the last valet who'd tried to herd him off to bed.

“I was,” Takashi says evenly. “And now I'm here.”

Keith's little fingers curl into his palm – not strong enough or willing enough to make a fist. Just enough to fidget a little, ostensibly weighing his options. Of course, six year olds aren't usually known for their skills in weighing one's options. Worry and stubbornness and guilt are all written plain as day across his face, woven into the set of his pout and the way he plays with the fabric of the alcove seat. And it's only a matter of moments before he speaks again.

“It's _snowing_ ,” he says, as if that is enough of an explanation. Takashi hums thoughtfully.

“I heard that Gran asked you to go to bed,” he replies. Keith seems to curl into himself more, head ducking down, arms drawing close to his sides.

“She – uh –”

“Did you disobey Gran?”

Keith makes a noise in the back of his throat, the noise of a child who, as much as he might want to argue, hasn't learned yet to lie. Instead, he pleads his case once more, “But Takashi, it's _snowing_. I wanted to see it – it's the first one of winter!”

Takashi watches him, and perhaps Keith does not see the gentleness written into his expression. But he does look up, in trust and curiosity, when Takashi stands and tells him, softly, to wait just a moment. To his credit, Keith does precisely that – he scoots to the edge of the seat and kicks his legs against it until Takashi returns and kneels in front of him.

“I _was_ going to save this for Midwinter, _but_ ...” Taking Keith's hand, Takashi places something in it that Keith immediately brings in front of his nose to examine. In the soft glow from the lights outside the window, the edges of the little oblong object are muted and blur together, but some of the gold ornamentation over the blue lacquer is still visible. After a few moments of poking at it Keith looks up, trying the best he can to hide the skepticism from his expression.

“Is it – a jewelry box?” He asks. (Maybe there is hope for his diplomatic skills after all; what he _wanted_ to say was that _it doesn't do anything_. But that would be _rude_.)

Takashi sits back beside him and turns it over in Keith's hands. Then, from his own pocket, he pulls out a pendant on a chain: perfectly circular with a design in the middle, the same blue and gold as the present. Carefully, he presses the pendant into a barely visible slot on the bottom and suddenly, the top springs open with a chime of music that cuts through the quiet of the night.

Immediately, Keith's eyes glitter with excitement and after only a few bars he is stumbling over himself to exclaim, “That's our lullaby!”

The smile at Takashi's lips softens. “It is.” The lullaby that Gran taught Mother and Mother taught them, the one she still sings to Keith most nights when she is not occupied with matters of state. Takashi shows Keith how to turn the dial on the back so the song continues to play, and for a while they sit by the window as the snow falls and their lullaby twinkles in the night. Slowly, inch by inch, Keith's eyes begin to grow heavy. When they reach half mast, Takashi stands – and before his brother can argue he is picking him up, music box and all, and carrying him to the bed in the middle of the room. It is large enough to eclipse Keith – to eclipse the both of them. So, of course, Takashi fixes the pillows to make a little nest that Keith instinctively curls into, his fingers grabbing at the edge of his brother's jacket sleeve.

“Takashi –” But he doesn't need to say much more than that. Carefully kicking off his boots, Takashi follows him, and Keith only lies down when it seems that Takashi won't leave.

“These go together,” Takashi says, holding up the pendant for Keith to see. “Only this can open the music box. You keep that, and I'll keep this, and that way we'll always be together.”

Keith watches the pendant with rapt, if sleep-riddled, attention. A quiet, confident smile blooms at his lips and he settles deeper into the pillows, loosely holding onto his brother's arm all the while. “What does it say on there? The words?”

Takashi traces the letters in the air, asks Keith to sound out each one, then puts them together in a word for him. “Arus. The capital of Arusia. That's where these were made – we'll visit one day.”

“We will?”

“Of course. It's supposed to be beautiful, with fields of flowers called Juniberry blossoms that grow in the spring. And mountains that get covered in snow in the winter.”

“ _Wow_.”

“That's right. We'll see all the sights they have. I even hear the princess of Altea visits there often. Perhaps we'll meet her.”

At _that_ , Keith pulls a decidedly six-year-old face and Takashi diplomatically hides the amused grin that flickers at his mouth. He takes the music box from Keith's hands and, leaving it open to play, sets it on the nightstand by the bed, humming along with the tune.

Later, their mother finds them in much the same position: Keith's hand on his brother's sleeve even in sleep, Takashi dozing peacefully despite the way sprawling out in bed is already beginning to wrinkle the formal jacket and regalia underneath. With quick, skilled hands, Empress Kasumi undoes her son's jacket and slides it from his shoulders without waking him, and pulls a heavier blanket over both of them.

* * *

Inevitably, Spring comes next. The long Winter fades in a burst of sunlight and yellow crocuses blooming overnight, the streets filling with people once the snow melts and they can enjoy the growing flowers, the outdoor markets, the parks and the cafes. And once the last frost truly melts from the Ivy that clings to the trellised walls of the Obsidian Palace, the gates of the garden open for its residents.

Despite the endless rows of hedges and rosebushes and evergreen trees carefully sculpted throughout the expanse of the back lawn, Takashi has had its entirety mapped for at least four years now, and Keith is very nearly on his way. On the first day of the season, Takashi nearly trips over himself out through the intricately arched doorways that open up into the garden as he runs after his brother, hiding his own excitement under his façade of graceful embarrassment to be caught in a half-sprint by the staff. It's a good showing, but still a work in progress, and his air of decorum doesn't stand a chance the moment the warmth pools against his face and he stands, fully, in the sunshine.

It gives Keith a wider head-start than is, perhaps, wise, but Takashi cannot help but pause, tilting his head back to catch the light. Now that he's fought and won the right to wear his hair as he likes, shorn close to his head around the sides and up the back, he can feel the gentleness of the breeze on his skin despite the stiff layers of his dress jacket. His lips are set soft in something hovering between smile and reverie, and for a few passing moments he listens to the birdsong, the sound of his brother's delighted laughter echoing through the rows of hedges, the fall of footsteps.

 _Wait_. Takashi draws himself from his lull too late to have not been caught in it; in the sunlight, the first thing that catches his eye is light flashing off polished metal – the badge and ornamentation of the Royal Guard. _A_ Royal Guard, he realizes, but it doesn't make any real difference that it's not a whole group. It's still unbecoming, to be caught so – so carefree, so _childish_ when the Empire looks to him for its strength, always. _That is what it means_ , his father has told him gently time and again, _your crown and your title_.) As the guardsman crosses before him, Takashi does what he can to keep the flush from his cheeks, to stand tall and proud.

The man stops, perhaps more out of duty than surprise. Takashi is still on the top step of the sloping staircase that leads down into the garden but the guard is far taller than himself, perhaps than father, and he seems to have no trouble maintaining his own composure. Before Takashi can cobble together a greeting – any kind of acknowledgement – the guard sweeps into a clipped, elegant bow.

“Your Highness,” he says evenly, “Pardon our intrusion.”

There are so _many_ things that come to his lips immediately – that of course, of _course_ it isn't an intrusion, that the gardens are for everyone – or should be. Things that he knows in his heart that he'd say given the chance, things that he has learned from every tutor, every advisor, are a weakness that he and his family are not permitted to have. So for a moment he searches out, fumbling with words that should come smooth as silk and hard as stone if he were only a little better at being the prince he is meant to be.

“Oh, of – of course,” he settles on, fluttering between raising one hand in peace and inclining his head in return and eventually settling on a strange mix of both. He's not sure if the guard rises in time to see the display, but his worry is short lived by curiosity that blooms when he finally processes the word _our_. The question is at his lips before he can remind himself that this honest sort of conversation isn't expected, “You're – _?_ ”

The guard is tall and broad and steady in his presence, so perhaps that is why it has taken Takashi so long to notice that he is not, in fact, alone. There is a boy at his side – could he be any older than Takashi himself? It doesn't seem likely, with his soft features and long limbs so familiar to Takashi – markers of a stage of growing he'd like to be out of soon, with how awkward and unpredictable it can be. He is silent in the wake of his half-question, locking eyes with the boy. Distracted enough that he does not notice the guard's deliberation, his own hesitation before he places a hand on the boy's shoulder.

“– My son. He wants to enter the Royal Guard when he comes of age. I thought that a tour of my patrol might do him some good. If – you'll allow, Your Highness.”

Takashi flits over confusion, struck with the thought that surely these concerns are a matter to kept within the family, that his opinion bears no weight. But then, of course, the pieces click and he finds himself nodding quickly before he's formed the right words to accompany the gesture.

“Right! It's – probably a good idea, then! I mean, with such a lovely day, I –” Wrong, _wrong_ , absolutely wrong. It's rambling, and the farthest from firm and commanding. Desperately, Takashi latches onto the image of how his father would carry himself, draws a steadying breath, and then one more before he speaks again. “Please, continue your fine work.”

The phrasing is stiff on his tongue, though he has heard it time and again said to any number of staff around the palace. When his father says it, though, it always sounds so graceful, as if it is perfectly placed and meant to be. Takashi cannot help the swell of frustration that comes in the wake of his own failing. But for now it is all he can do. The guard is bowing once more, and Takshi pretends not to see the softness flickering across his expression. Or maybe it's not so much pretending; after all, his attention once again goes to the boy with a magnetic kinship he cannot, should not, explain.

He watches as the boy hesitates momentarily, then dips into his own boy. Less polished than his father's, strong in a way that Takashi thinks he understands despite not sharing a single word with him. As they turn to go he is still looking, watching as the boy glances once over his shoulder, sunlight catching in his amber eyes and setting them all aglow. And then they are gone, nothing remaining but their retreating footsteps and the echoing sound of Keith's impatient calls from somewhere in the middle of the garden.

As it tends to happen, Takashi's awkwardness was merely a step along the path that he traveled. The gangly, in-between unsurety of thirteen melts over the summer, dies in the autumn, and the next year he greets fourteen taller and steadier than he had been the year before. He listens more intently to his father when he is allowed to sit in on meetings, follows his mother around like a second shadow as she watches over the palace, the staff, the treasury. He reads what his tutors assign, mimics his parents' manners when the nobility from the Empire and beyond grace the Obsidian Palace, remains starry eyed at his grandmother's stories about the history of their nation. And always, always has his brother by his side.

Keith grows as well, at the same pace but a different time. As Takashi leaves his carefree days behind, Keith is only truly coming into them. As six becomes seven, then eight, he is more possessed with life and light as each day passes. One summer, Keith diligently maps out all of the secret passages that the palace has, noting their entrances and exits and which ones spill into the gardens or the side quarters or the stables. When he brings Takashi his findings, his brother immediately ruffles his hair in pride – and shows him two that he missed. To make up for stealing some of Keith's thunder, Takashi allows himself to be talked into a game of hide and seek that lasts two hours and winds up in scaring the daylights out of the head chef. Their mother and grandmother both chastise them, but neither can say they regret their fun.

The summer that Takashi is fifteen, he is officially presented to the court. There had never been contention for the crown; his immediate family is small by the standards of its storied history, so no one had ever thought the mantle of heir apparent would pass to anyone else. But they hold the ceremony anyway: assembling every noble, asking him in front of all if he will be the shield that stands strong for all people of the Empire.

 _I will_ , Takashi answers. There is no laughter in his voice the way there is when he is running through the gardens or helping Keith steal desserts from the kitchen. He faces his father and mother and grandmother drawn up to his full height, and though he has practiced the words, he still means them now with all conviction, free and proud. _I will watch over and protect the Empire all my days_.

They were all expecting as much, everything has gone according to plan, but in the silence that rings after his proclamation it is as if the room itself releases a long held breath. The parties that follow pass in a whirlwind of new people to meet, of holding his own without his parents by his side, of making sure to divide his time between the court and his brother before Keith had a chance to feel any widening distance between them.

What was less chaotic was the chance to meet more than the nobility – to finally see the _people_ . The year he accepts his duty and his destiny, Takashi finds that his excursions into the heart of the Empire not only pick up in frequency but in duration. With his father, he tours the markets and smiths and mills. With his grandmother he visits restaurants and pastry shops and schools, spends time greeting every young student and addressing them by name. When one young girl excitedly grabs onto the hem of his coat, he handles the situation before it can become one, gently showing her the glittering stitching, then teaching her a proper curtsey and returning the favor with a proper bow of his own. _Just like a princess_ , he tells her, and they leave her smiling as they wind back to the palace.

At the end of the summer, the crown family sets out on a parade that stretches between the summer residence and the Obsidian Palace back up north. The sun is hot and high in the endless blue sky, and Takashi is sweating into the collar of his formal jacket before they even take off. But he sits still and tall and keeps Keith's hand in his whenever his brother allows it, distinctly aware that it must be more unbearable for an eight year old with less practice at sitting still in the summer sun. Still, with their parents riding in a carriage behind them, Takashi knows that it is his responsibility to ensure that he and his brother keep up their appearances.

As they wind through the small towns, the caravan of carriages never fails to bring a crowd. Takashi hears their lively chatter, energetic and enthusiastic as vibrance of the sky and the warm breeze, but he holds himself steady – allowing only for a gentle wave to each assembly as they pass through. Hours of it, and each time it is still a fight (pathetically, probably — shouldn't he be better composed by now that he is nearly a man?) not to smile, to answer their calls and questions, meet their enthusiasm with his own. But he manages it, until they reach the town that lies at the foot of the Obsidian Palace.

The members of this community have seen more of him than the rest of the Empire. This is his home, after all. This is what he knows best, where his heart lies – in all the tunnels and blooming flowers and climbing ivy and winter frost. Still, it doesn't dampen their excitement, nor does it dampen his own. He remains sitting as straight as he can; Keith has long since abandoned taking hold of Takashi's hand, perhaps finally too hot to seek even a kind of contact he usually fights for. Takashi taps his leg as they approach the swell of a crowd held back only by the efforts of the Royal Guard, and only raises an eyebrow when his brother fixes him with a miserable look.

“We're almost home,” Takashi murmurs, and when Keith looks as if he is about to protest, Takashi's expression hardens. “ _Keith_.”

The fight leaves his brother; though he murmurs something darkly that sounds like _you're worse than Dad_ , he straightens up and, if he doesn't wave, at least he looks less angry at the whole thing. Takashi breathes a deep sigh and raises his now aching arm in a gentle wave.

Then: he's not sure why, but he swears that the crowd ripples.

It's like the way he can sense a dragonfly fluttering through the tall grass without seeing it – something dazzling and different enough to catch his senses. His arm is still caught in that placid wave when he notices a rustling at the crowd closest to the carriage's left side, and his gaze tracks the movement, curiosity burning behind his ribs.

A flash of an elbow, a woman moving forward to allow someone to pass, and then Takashi sees the boy's eyes before anything else: honey amber, catching in the sunlight. The boy must be his age, maybe a year older if that much, and Takashi knows him before he realizes that he knows him – sees the set of his lips and his proud stance and efficient grace as he cuts through the crowd until there is enough of a gap at the head of the carriage that he can stand at the edge of everyone gathered and their gazes can meet.

Takashi breathes in and out slowly, languidly, his arm frozen in its position. He does not notice Keith glance his way, then search around for what it is his brother has frozen to look at. He does not notice much of anything: the heat, the pounding sun finally starting its trajectory westward, the bounce in the wheels as they pass over the cobblestone. All he can do is stare at the boy and instinctively fight the urge that he fights every day – to let his lips pull into something bigger and grander and more sincere than the distant expression he's meant to master.

It is a fight that now, when it is most important to be at his best, he loses.

As the carriage moves forward and they are brought to the same level for a single passing moment, Takashi smiles. And then stares in recognition and wonder and excitement as the boy smiles back. He turns his head as the carriage moves beyond their tangential contact, his gaze and his grin fixed on the other, watching as the boy sweeps into a boy (more coordinated now, less stiff than his father's still) then straightens back up, their gazes locked until the sun gets in Takashi's eyes and then they are too far apart to see each other anymore.

* * *

Moonlight glitters at the edge of Takashi's glass, the thick-cut crystal sparkling as it catches first the glow from the window, then the lights that dot the room – so many they flicker and burn like so many stars. He is flush, a little with the fizzing of champagne on his tongue, but more from the warmth of every bulb and candle, from the sheer amount of people that fill the ballroom. He has been to so many functions of state, more and more with every passing year, and he has learned how to handle them: how to smile, gentle and distant at the corners of it. How to greet every ambassador, every noble, every distant member of his parents' advisor board and relative he has never known for how far they are spread from the core of his family. He has learned titles and how far to bow and how to receive compliments and advice alike, floating serenely through all of it.

Tonight, though, might be the first time he has truly felt _alive_ in the thrall of it.

His true birthday only comes every four years, and this particular leap year, when he turns sixteen, falls perfectly in line with the next hundred year anniversary of the Empire's founding, a centennial celebration that lasts the entire winter every hundred years. It is not only the nobility and the staff that grace the court; the most notable, most fashionable, most famous of the Empire's people have come to the southern palace to celebrate the nation – to celebrate _him_ and his birthday and it has only taken a few warm, genuine compliments and a glass or two of champagne to turn his disinclination of the attention to gratitude and joy. He has spent the last hour with the son of one of the Empire's top engineers, and though he doesn't quite understand the science of it, he has always loved a fascinating story and Matthew, just a little younger than he is, is so _full_ of them.

It is only when the bells chime for midnight that he allows himself to be pulled away from all these new faces, new people. As the last day of February truly rolls in, he hears his father call for him. Excusing himself with flushed apologies, Takashi crosses the ballroom to find the waiting arms of his family: father, mother, grandmother, even Keith has woken back up. Takashi goes to him first, leaning down to ruffle his hair.

“Hey!” His brother shouts, hiding a smile as he swats at Takashi's hand. “I could've stayed up the whole time, y'know.”

“Is that right?” Takashi asks. Keith hums impatiently at him.

“ _Yes_. I should get to stay at the party the whole time, too. That's what's fair.”

“Well, why don't you ask for one for your next birthday?”

Keith lights up at the suggestion, displeasure forgotten, and Takashi expects some disapproval from his parents standing above them. But Empress Kasumi's expression is soft all the way through and she reaches one gloved hand down to run her fingers gently through Takashi's hair as Emperor Hiroto puts one hand on Keith's shoulder.

“Let's talk about that when the time comes,” he says diplomatically, affectionately tapping Keith's cheek when he groans. Then he reaches out for Takashi's shoulder – before pulling him into his chest for a hug. It is more affection than he thinks his parents have ever shown anyone in public, and it's enough to make worry bloom in the cavern of his chest before it can be soothed over by golden-laced love. He wraps his arms quickly around his father, memorizing the sensation before they part.

Gran moves in then to press her hand against his cheek, warm even through the silk of her glove. Her voice is quiet and low as it always is, but it cuts through the noise of the party all the same. “Happy birthday, Love.”

Takashi gently touches the back of her hand. “Thank you, Gran.”

“Alright,” his mother says, running her fingers through Keith's hair, straightening it and soothing it all at once. “I believe we must take photographs before we can indulge in dessert.”

Keith makes a noise of protest and, in all fairness, Takashi can't blame him. He has sat through too many endless sessions to think that they move as quickly and easily as his mother implies. But all it takes is promising Keith the largest slice of cake, away from their parents' notice, for him to happily follow everyone to dais by the arching back windows.

As always, the flash of the bulb sends spots across Takashi's vision, each accompanied by an echoing shutter noise. _Flash, click. Flash, click. Flash, click, crash_.

Lightning. The recognition is instinctual, enough that Takashi cannot understand the flutter of desperation that rises in his chest. Lightning, offsetting the pattern of the photographer. He hears the silence that falls over the ballroom like a physical thing, an absence that weighs like an anchor. But it was only – it was only lightning.

 _Silence. Crash_.

There are lights in the distance, in the dark beyond the window, but they are not quick and jagged the way they should be. Distantly, Takashi feels a hand take his. His gaze is fixed on the midnight outside, the afterglow of something that should be, that isn't, lightning dying back into its umbra. Whoever has his hand says nothing; whoever presses against his other side says nothing.

_Silence._

_Crash._

“We must go,” his father says, quiet and firm behind him, but in the silence of the ballroom everyone must hear him because it's only after he speaks that the evening splinters into chaos.

Takashi reenters his own senses at the same time the windows rattle and the assembly around him springs into motion. One of the counts closest to them has grabbed his wife's hand, sprinting for the back door that leads out to the gardens. Another cluster have taken off for one of the entrances at the side of the palace – more and more calling for whomever they came with, a stormy ocean of bodies in motion vying for the exits away from the windows and doors at the front.

Distinguishing one from another is – Takashi's eyes narrow and he turns, his hand sliding in his mother's grip as he searches for Keith. Keith who should have been right beside him, but _isn't_. He breathes heavily for a moment, panic trying in vain to take his focus, his lungs, the precious seconds that must put him closer and closer to danger that he does not know the details of.

“Keith,” he says, slowly, then quicker and sharper, “ _Keith_. Mom, I have to –”

“Takashi –”

“I'll find you after! Go!” Takashi looks at his mother for a moment that seems longer than a moment, her dark eyes frantic in the sharp relief of the explosions outside the window. He aches with what he sees in her face, but then he turns on his heel and takes off for the body of the escaping crowd.

Off the dais and in the fray, the confusion is enough to nearly swallow him alive. No one is looking, noticing – he hadn't known the difference between being seen and unseen until this moment; as strange and uncomfortable as it has always been to command so much attention, he wildly hangs onto the wish that he had it now, that the crowd would part for him, that Keith would come running to meet him. He stumbles as someone's elbow finds his back, loses track of his trajectory. But ducking low gives him a glimpse of a path forward – bedroom? Would Keith have gone upstairs?

“Matthew!”

People call for each other – their loved ones, their family, their friends, whomever they brought with them for the evening. Takashi weaves through them, finding anywhere that he can dart through without being knocked off course. The next _crash_ shakes the bones of the palace, shakes Takashi's bones, sends his heart down into his stomach. He trips, once, takes another elbow knocked into the side of his head, then picks up his pace.

Until he stops short entirely.

Matthew was younger than him, and it hadn't felt like such a difference in the calm of the party but here in the chaos of limbs and cries of alarm and the palace (his home, sturdy and long lived and always, always there for him) shaking with every crash, Matthew looks _young_. Takashi's heart flutters in the pit of his stomach and he turns a little, enough to push through the throng and reach out, grabbing onto Matthew's hand.

“Come on!”

Perhaps it doesn't make sense – perhaps Matthew's father and mother would find him before Takashi can get them out, but he is _burning_ with promise. He'd told his mother he'd find her, and he _will_. There is no force in this world that will make him let down his mother; they will escape.

One of them is shaking, or maybe both of them are. Their connection, fingers locked together, trembles as Takashi tows Matthew behind him – almost misses what Matthew says over the noise of the crowd and the shouting, now, the shouting that he can hear outside the windows. “My sister! Katie! We have to find her!”

“She's not with your family?”

“She's always sneaking off!”

Takashi burns with the layers of tightly knit emotion in his chest – terror, frustration, determination. He pulls Matthew's hand a little tighter, doesn't wonder if it's entirely practical or if the contact is grounding. Either way he says around his next heavily drawn breath, “Keep a lookout for her. We're going to the staircase in the back.”

So Matthew does. He watches the ballroom more carefully than Takashi could as he tries to carve out a path for them. Occupied, they slow down, caught in a tangle of legs and elbows and glancing blows stumbled through with no thought to the formality of apologies – as if every manner has burnt up in favor of something realer and more painful than life had been just moments ago.

It's not the sight of Katie that Matthew responds to but her voice. After a moment of Matthew tugging him off to the side and taking the lead, Takashi hears it too – a high sound of recognition that becomes a name, _Matt!_ With a goal, Matthew is nearly faster than Takashi in getting them through, tugging them both through the crowd, one hand outstretched until he stops on a dime.

“ _Matt!_ ”

“This is why I tell you not to run away!”

Matthew looks small in the frantic, confused crowd; Katie looks _tiny_ . She can't be older than five or six, younger still than Keith, and Takashi chokes on his next breath. Whatever is going on – whatever is causing explosions to rattle the walls of his home, whatever is causing the world he knows to end, they need to _get out_. He pushes the desire to tremble from his mind, forces his hands still as he kneels in front of Katie to meet her gaze. In the shattered light of the room, he can see tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

“Katie, right?”

It takes Katie a moment to look up at him, frantically casting her gaze at her brother, at the people around them, at the windows alight once more with the flash of an explosion, but then finally, finally, she meets his gaze. There is nothing here to smile about, but that is the promise he has made: to use what he can to be his Empire's shield. So Takashi smiles, firm, and holds his hand out.

“We're going to leave now.”

It only takes a little arranging for Takashi to wind up carrying Katie while Matthew takes his other hand – Matthew is faster than he is getting through this crowd and Takashi asks him lead them to the back staircase, winding their way through the chaos quicker now that Matthew is finding the angles and pathways that Takashi hadn't seen. Someone _yells_ near the front of the ballroom, where front doors are cracking and shaking, and there are catches of pleas that reach him – _what is happening, why now, where is_ –

(Suffering. They're suffering – they were here for _him_ and now they're suffering. Takashi's legs shake, suddenly weak, but he has Katie in one arm and Matthew on the other; he cannot afford that weakness.)

“ _There!_ ”

This far back, the crowd has all but disappeared, and the entrance to one of the passages is just within reach. Takashi tugs at Matthew's hand, gesturing with a nod. “This way!”

“But –”

“Trust me, _please_.”

Impossible, it must seem impossible, right? Running straight for a wall, away from all the exits. But another explosion rocks the palace, closer now, and they change their direction. Takashi does not bother to brace himself as he falls to his knees in front of one of the panels surrounded by molding that line the bottom of the wall, Katie still occupying one arm as he presses against the seam with his other hand. It takes one pass, then another, Matthew trembling at his side, Katie clutching at his arm with bother of her hands, and for a wild moment he thinks he's gotten it wrong.

But – no, there. It yields, swinging inward on silent hinges, dark and twisting and emptying beyond the palace's walls. Takashi grabs for Katie's hand, squeezing it gently but with less diplomacy than his station requires, unable to stop the dizzying rush of relief, and then he sets her down.

“This leads outside. Go.”

“But – aren't you –?”

“I have to get my brother,” Takashi tells Matthew, pulling him forward until he is standing in front of the panel. It is the last thing his face wants to do, but Takashi smiles. “ _Go_. Find your family.”

Matthew holds his gaze for a second longer, and then he is ushering Katie in through the panel. Takashi watches until they disappear into the darkness, curls his fingers against his palm to stifle the tremble that has returned to his hands, then presses the panel shut.

Winding his way up the back stairs, most of the back of the ballroom cleared out, Takashi is almost struck dizzy with how familiar and unfamiliar it is all at once – as if it's some strange dream, that he's merely going to his room, even as his home is falling apart around him. Here the lights are off and he makes his way through the shadows with only his muscle memory, passing through every hallway by instinct so familiar that it aches.

“ _Keith_ ,” he whispers fiercely, his fingers running against the wall. “ _Keith_!”

His lungs stutter in his chest, desperation and fear telling him to yell and stay silent all at once. He clenches his jaw to fight against the burn in his throat until he feels the notch at the side of his mouth twitch from the pressure. Keith's room is not so far, now, just a few more doors –

“Takashi!”

If he was not set on getting them out of whatever this catastrophe is, Takashi might collapse with relief. As it is he surges forward, reaching out wildly until smaller fingers tangle with his own and Keith stumbles toward him, illuminated by the jagged light cutting in through the window. Takashi is too consumed with triumph and urgency to process the details – to feel for the stricken expression on his face, the tear tracks down his cheeks, the stubborn set of his chin.

“What were you _thinking_?” Takashi's voice is iron fletched, and Keith responds immediately, drawing up to his full height.

“I couldn't leave it behind!”

“Are you _serious_? Keith – !”

“I don't know what's going on, I had to save it!” He lifts his other hand, in it the music box in all of its familiar gold and blue glory. Takashi exhales heavily.

“ _Keith_ , this isn't a game – how _could_ you –”

“It's important – !”

“More than your _life_? You're meant to be acting more like an _adult_ – !”

“Takashi!”

He could argue more, _wants_ to, but through the mask of obstinance on his brother's face, there are new tears gathering, a flush in his face that speaks to an upset smaller and more sharply felt for it than alarm at whatever is trying to tear down their home. Takashi's lips part as if to speak, but he is silent. In the quiet, Keith pulls something from his pocket and shoves it roughly into Takashi's hand, and is if by instinct he looks down at it.

The matching pendant looks back up at him.

It catches more light than there is in the hall. Takashi stares at it longer than he should; when he looks up, it is with enough understanding to keep them both silent. Wordlessly, he slips the chain around his neck. Keith adjusts his grip on the music box.

“Alright,” Takashi says, offering his hand which his brother takes immediately. “Let's –”

An ear splitting _crack_ ripples through the walls, the floor, the glass of the windows. There's only a second between the recognition and the shattering of the window, and Takashi only barely manages to bundle Keith up in his arms and shield him from the cascade of shards that glitter down and catch the firelight on their jagged edges.

“We have to go,” Takashi murmurs. Keith flinches closer. “We have to go _now_.”

There are noises, now, from the stairs, the way he came up. He doesn't know what they are but he knows that they cannot mean anything good. Helpless – helpless, frustrated, he has no idea where to go now, with their exit blocked off.

They have to go, and he's _useless_ –

“ _Your highness_.”

Takashi does his best not to flinch at the new voice that comes from the shadows at the other end of the hall, but with Keith pressed against him he stands strong as he searches the darkness.

“Who –”

The explosions outside have bled into fire and though its light dances it's steady enough through the remains of the window that the other is cast into relief the moment he steps forward. And Takashi's breath catches, electric recognition the moment he places the boy's keen gaze, amber eyes.

“You're – ”

“I can get you out of here.”

As easy as breathing – easier, now – Takashi reaches out despite the fact that the boy hasn't offered his hand. But that doesn't matter because he takes Takashi's hand the moment he reaches out, the contact safe and alive. He nudges Keith to take his own weight back, their fingers still linked.

“We're going, Keith. Come on.”

Sounds chase them: voices echoing distantly, footfalls, collisions of metal and flesh and plaster. Takashi's mind wants to reel and place them, ferret out who has come into his palace, his _home_ , hurt his people and his family and his friends. But he focuses, instead, on where he is holding onto Keith, and being held onto by the boy.

“How,” Takashi fumbles with the question, “How did you know – ?”

“I saw you running up the back stairs,” the boy answers without turning back, sure footed as he leads them down a branching hallway. “I thought that someone ought to find you.”

“You –” Shouts echo closer, now, and Keith flinches. Takashi rubs his thumb across the back of his hand. “You did. You found us – thank you.”

The boy says nothing for a moment. Then: “The servants' staircase is hidden here, in the back. It won't buy us much time. I can't go the whole way with you, I have to find my father.”

Takashi latches onto the sound of his voice – the same age, he has to be, but his tone is firm and brokers no argument and Takashi is envious and grateful all at once; as much as he wishes for the same control and command in his own voice, it is something to hold onto and listen to, to fight against the creeping dread of outrunning a danger he does not understand.

At the end of the next hall the boy presses against its seam much like the hidden passageways, though instead of a small hole, an entire doorway swings open. The boy guides them through, warning them once about the darkness, then closes the door behind them. With none of the lights lit it is pitch black, and though the sounds are muffled for now it is only a matter of time before they catch up. Takashi knows that. The boy must know it, too. Even though they have slowed down to compensate for the darkness, they continue to push forward.

Down a half flight, then another until they reach a hallway. The boy only hesitates when they land at the bottom, still holding onto Takashi's hand when he turns.

“Take that exit – it'll go through the pantry, and then you'll be able to get out from the side of the estate. I heard the guards talking – their majesties were being helped to the train. You should go there, too.”

The mention of their parents catches him like something brilliant and sharp edged. Takashi nods, knowing that they must go – unwilling to break apart.

“You'll be safe?” He asks, fingers tightening a little. The boy keeps his gaze, brows furrowing and lips parting before he replies.

“I – I'll be fine.”

Outside, the world is burning.

“ _Please_ ,” Takashi says fiercely, gripping tighter still. “Make sure you find your father and escape.”

The boy looks startled, but he nods. “I promise.”

Only then does Takashi let him go, taking Keith and leading him the opposite way. He doesn't look back.

* * *

The Galra people, denizens of the nation of Daibazal, laid their siege of the Empire and Altea like the first fall of a sudden winter, sweeping through the weaknesses in the nations' borders and raining heavy fire for hours unopposed. By the time armies were raised to fight the invasion, Daibazal had claimed enough of the borderlands to make a stand. What truly secured their assault, though, were the fruits of their planted espionage blooming. Spies that had funneled into Altea and the Empire over years staged twin coups of the royal families of both nations that night, striking at the heart as the rest of the forces held the most strategic points on each border.

Exact accounts of the first few days of the siege are hard to come by; ruthless chaos was the preferred fighting style of the Galra, striking at the heads of state as they gained every inch of ground they could at the border, and their first blow was a devastating one. In a single day, they managed to capture King Alfor and Queen Melanor of Altea, and Emperor Hiroto and Empress Kasumi of the Empire, toppling the sacred seat of Altea and the Ivy Throne in just one blow.

Until the dust settled weeks later, no one was privy to the status of the royal children. It was only later that reports surfaced: Crown Princess Allura of Altea and Prince Keith of the Empire had successfully managed to board trains for the vast, neutral kingdom of Arusia, and a few scattered members of their nobility and court followed them. Crown Prince Takashi had been captured at the train station, confined for months with his mother and father at the hands of the Galra.

Within half a year, the military faction of the Empire had gathered enough resources and ground to push back against the invasion. The combined might of the Empire's military and the remaining Altean insurgents quelled the fighting at the border, and the military orchestrated raid after raid to target the Galra ensconced within the Empire. Their victory came, eventually, but pyrrhic. Months after the assault, Daibazal was not only defeated but eradicated, but so too was Altea. The Empire still stood, but in ruins of its former self, and by the time the last of the Galra were driven away, the royal families had, seemingly, met their end.

Where there had been three nations, there now barely lay one, and even the last took its time to heal and regrow. Nine years after the fall of Altea and Daibazal, the Empire – now calling itself the Republic – has metamorphosed. With its Emperor, Empress, and Crown Prince no more, and their youngest son too young and too far away to take the mantle of leadership (as cited by Interim Admiral Sanda of the Empire Military), power changed hands. The courts of old gave way to military establishments, run by a central Garrison. The hierarchy of aristocracy was abolished, the old elites stripped of their titles, protests silenced. _This Republic_ , the administration says _, will never again fall victim to another siege. It will be stronger, more united than the Empire had ever been_.

The Garrison will make sure of that.

* * *

It is not yet October, and already winter has come to the Republic. Frost touches the trees quickly shedding their leaves while thick, dark clouds laden with cold rain linger overhead. Soon, that rain will turn to dripping sleet and then, not long after, heavy snow, and the streets will become near-unlivable. Adam is not surprised to find them full of life now: people working their outdoor jobs, saving their pennies in the process, or enticing passers-by to buy whatever they have to pawn. He pulls the collar of his jacket tighter around his neck and doesn't meet their eyes.

“Citizens of the Republic, we hear you!” The voice rings above the muted bustle of the street noise, with such regularity that Adam could set a watch by it. “Every day, our nation grows stronger by the resilience of our people –”

Adam rounds a corner before he can hear the end of the lieutenant's speech. The wording changes a little, each day, but not significantly enough to be surprising. He doesn't need to listen to the need for soldiers, the call to arms. Instead, he drops a hand to his pocket, feeling the extra few coins bouncing against each other within. Entering the bakery does little to cut down on the chill from the unseasonable season, but Adam allows a little of the tension to bleed from the set of his shoulders away from the biting wind.

“Had a good week, then?”

The corner of Adam's lips flicker up, briefly. “Good morning, Mrs. Bhasin. I suppose you could say that.”

The woman behind the counter makes a rough sound, something like a derisive snort, and doesn't look up from where she is shelving a few, meager looking loaves. “ _But what is good anymore_ , I know, I know.” She glances up for a moment, thin humor glinting weakly in her dark eyes, then turns to the case behind her. “I have things for you. Come.”

“I only need –”

“We had extra flour this week,” she says simply, neatly cutting off whatever he might have said. “Someone was feeling generous. Here.” When she turns back, she has two of the larger loaves in her hand. “Call it a special.”

Adam looks down at them, stomach knitting itself into knots, and he can't keep the concern from etching out in little lines across his expression. “I couldn't take these both. I barely have more than usual to pay with.”

“Then it's a good thing these are on sale, yes?” And that is the end of that; Mrs. Bhasin's tone brokers no argument, but some mulishness must still show on Adam's face because she sighs, leaning in. “You need to eat if you're going to get better.”

At that, a flush creeps over Adam's face. “I'm – I'm fine.”

“I know.” She's looking back at her work, now. “Make sure that friend of yours gets some, too. Mr. Mystery.”

“Oh _please_. He's just – quiet.”

“Mysterious.” Mrs. Bhasin's laugh is rough as dry leaves. “Have you heard? Three more people have come forward claiming to be the lost prince.”

Adam hums a little at the gossip. “It's all anyone's been talking about.”

“Who wouldn't want to be heir to an empire?”

“The Empire doesn't exist anymore, Mrs. Bhasin.”

She glances up, gaze sharp. “There's still money in it.”

Well. Adam can't really argue with that. He pulls out the few coins he has in his pocket and places them on the counter. Mrs. Bhasin glances down at the pile.

“You weren't kidding,” she says. Adam tilts his head challengingly.

“Like I said –”

But she's waving him off. “Go. Get better.”

Adam ducks his head, even though she's looking away. “Have a good day, Mrs. Bhasin.”

“Whatever that means,” she replies, but it sounds like agreement.

The loaves are tucked in the crook of Adam's elbow and he instinctively curls around them when he walks back out to the wind and the world. Here, the side street is a little emptier but he keeps his head down all the same and his pace quick, never stopping for the vendors or the regulars he recognizes by face. Any snatches of conversation he hears are much the same, _are you kidding me with that price?_ and _there's still people running from the Southern sector after the raid_ , and _people are saying it's true! Some of them have been fakes but the prince really is out there_.

Months after the rumor has kindled to life, and they still believe it. But Adam supposes it's more pleasant to think about than other things.

Useful, too.

Everything that lines the streets here is tinted a same shade of grey, as if the sunken pallor of the sky has leeched into the concrete, the bricks and stone. Adam always half expects there to be some dampness in the cobblestones beneath his feet, muting his footfalls, but every step comes down hard and decisive. (A few times, many years ago, he would look for anything growing to peek through the cracks between each stone, any stray Dandelion or Wild Lace managing to break the barriers of sediment and set stone. But it's a dangerous thing, to keep an eye on the ground you've walked and not the path ahead.) Somewhere down the road, a truck backfires loud as a gunshot, but even when he recognizes it, an aching chill runs down his spine, setting his bruised ribs on fire.

The voices of MPs, at least a few at every other intersection, always manage to cut through the din of the vendors, the passers-by, hallmarked by a clinical sharpness that haunts Adam long after he has passed by them, eyes locked on each next step and decidedly paying them no apparent mind. Something aches in his back – real, phantom, is there a difference anymore – and stays there even when he leaves the main avenue behind and the somewhat maintained roads dwindle and twist into unkempt abandonment. The few cars parked here have rusted long ago, likely more trouble to start and drive away than they're worth; a whole less than the sum of their parts. Adam's free hand curls tighter against the jacket at his throat when the wind picks up in earnest.

It is hard to call the place a palace anymore, unless you know what you're looking for. Or, perhaps, it is harder, still, then.

The gate rises first from the ruined streets and the fog. Its steel bars have long since rusted over, swaths of the black filigree broken off where it had once decorated the very of the wrought arches until only a whisper of the twirling, meticulously crafted ivy remains. When Adam pushes one half of the gate in, the entire structure keens mournfully on its hinges, resisting every inch with the aching rust of too many years left in dereliction. It raises the hair on the back of Adam's neck, every time. Nothing beyond the gate has fared any better.

There are hints in that rolling expanse between the gate and the building that there may have been a lawn here, a garden. A few tufts of grass struggle to curl up and out amidst rubble and stone, and every so often there is a brambly thicket of roots and thorns that once might have been some soaring, manicured hedge. Now, the stumped remains nearly fade into the hard soil, all of it painted with the same shade of grey that dominates the sky today – that will dominate the sky all of the nonexistent fall and hard edged winter. With the land so razed and flat and sparse it's a wonder that the building beyond fades so fully into the background of the world beyond, but it tucks itself away all the same, as if somehow hiding its disrepair.

Up close, it's easier to see what the building once was. Its outer walls might have been a pearly off white, once, bracketed every few feet by soaring columns of deep, infinite black stone. Stone that might have shone in the sunlight, glowed under the gentle caress of the moon. If there is any remaining, now, it must be hunted down – hiding outside the few last, determined wreathes of ivy still trying to grow against the walls. Any obsidian that could, in another lifetime, given this building a name, could have made it a palace, has been so well abused that it might as well have taken all hope with it.

Adam does not look up at the crumbling edifice of what this place once had been. He adjusts the bread against his elbow and presses on the sweeping, sagging door with his other shoulder. It gives with a whisper of a protest.

Much like every store on the avenue, all the indoors offers is a break against the wind. But that is a mercy Adam will take. He sighs, quick and low, and picks back up his single-minded pace, past the dust covered splinters of wood and rubble that remain inside, the paintings that have been mostly ripped from the walls, a handful of glass shards that stubbornly cling to where they had been smashed away from their ilk and left on the floor. His destination is much further back. He pushes through silence thick as cobwebs until he gets there.

“Sam.”

Deep colored walls make the back room look, if not vibrant, then at least somewhat alive. The wood might have been a rich brown, once, but it hasn't lost all of its charm, and there are still threadbare patches of burgundy upholstery on the furniture salvaged from the palace's depths. The man in the room doesn't look altogether out of place, relaxing on a settee, diligently scanning the daily paper. He makes a noise of acknowledgement, clearly not done with the story. Adam sets the bread on the little table propped up against the opposite wall and only once he's as far indoors and away from the budding storm outside as he can be does he shrug off his jacket and lay it neatly against the back of a chair.

By the time he's done, Sam is looking up. “They've closed another border this morning,” he says, thin and taut. Adam sighs.

“I can't say I'm surprised.”

“Still.” Sam adjusts the paper, folding it through and turning to the lower section. “We're racing a ticking clock.”

“We're _working_ on it.” Maybe it's the sharpness in Adam's voice, sudden and steely, that causes Sam to look up. The moment their gazes meet, Adam is caught by the twin desires to dig in but also apologize all at once. Sam saves him from either.

“We are,” he concedes neatly, placing the paper beside him on the settee. “Any takers, then?”

Adam regards him for the span of a breath, then drops his head and his shoulders a little. The motion releases some of the tension creeping up his neck but his sides flare with pain and the frustration radiates deeper than the defensiveness had a moment ago, than the flickering edges of fear creeping in on the walk over. “A few more. We'll see them today or tomorrow. I'd have pushed, but –”

“It's a dangerous thing,” Sam muses.

“It's _impractical_.”

Sam only hums in response, a pleasant disagreement. But it _is_ impractical. The plan is risky at its very best: find an actor willing to play the role of the lost prince, pool their resources to get out of the country, and secure their lives with the reward money for the prince's return offered by the last living member of the Shirogane court. Soliciting auditions is tricky enough, but pushing to move the timetable up, particularly when the only people in the capital that haven't yet sought him out are the ones reluctant to begin with, will only lead to a kind of conflict they can't afford. Tipping the MPs off ( _again_ , his thoughts supply bitterly) because he'd surpassed the threshold on someone's fight or flight and sent them running to tell will set them farther back than waiting a day for their potential actors to come around. And the borders are closing, one by one, _every_ day.

Adam's hand twitches but he stubbornly does not press it against his aching ribs.

“Maybe we should hit the pawn dealers,” Adam says when it doesn't appear that Sam will fill the silence between them. “They're always hawking _genuine Shirogane artifact_. Maybe having something will make it more convincing.”

“Oh, please,” Sam huffs around the ghost of a laugh. “None of that's real.”

“You're so sure?”

“ _Trust_ me. My eyes've never let me down before.”

“Oh, I don't know.” There's something playing at the set of Adam's lips, making them flicker up at the edges with all the subtlety of a slipping shadow. “You tried to put on _my_ jacket without your glasses the other day.”

“The insolence of youth!” Sam shakes a finger at him, but there's a phantasmal humor lingering in his expression – the crease beside his eye, the lift of his chin. “Some things never change.”

“When we have enough money, we'll drink to that.”

It's then, just when some of the bristling defensiveness has finally let go of its hold on Adam, that they fall quiet again in the wake of some unidentifiable noise at the other end of the palace. Instantly Adam is sitting forward on the edge of the chair, all of his attention focused on staring down the scant bit of hallway they can see from the room. Neither of them move, not until the next noise – a voice so distant he can't make out the words. Then both of them are springing up.

“That man from the other day, he must have told!” Sam's voice is tight and sharp.

“Don't say it like it's my fault!”

“If you'd just _read over_ his resume like he asked –”

“How am I supposed to know that actors are so sensitive?”

“They're _actors!_ ”

“Be quiet!”

“What, you're going to hit the Military Police with a _chair?_ ”

Adam _does_ have a chair in his hands, held in front of him as the two of them make their way through the hall towards the foyer. He breathes deep and heavy. “It's better than _bare handed_.”

“Not on your prison sentence!”

“Hello?”

The last voice is one that Adam does not recognize, save for the fact that it is singular and does not spark with the instant recognition of the military cadence – doesn't ring with absolute, self-assured authority. And that alone is enough to pause him in his tracks as Sam eclipses his path, pulling ahead enough to peek around the corner before Adam can grab onto his jacket and yank him back to relative safety.

“ _Don't_ –”

“Can we help you?”

Adam's lost this round. That's a tone of voice he's heard before – soft and trustworthy, almost fatherly in its timbre, made for setting someone at ease. It's not ineffective; even Adam feels the effect of it, no matter how well aware he is of its calculated nature. All he can do is edge far enough to flank the opposite wall, guarding the entrance to the hallway, and stepping into the light falling in stripes across the grand front room from the open front door.

Before he can process it, Adam knows that the man who's found them is not with the military. He can recognize the hallmarks of Garrison trained professionals easier than breathing most days – the way they carry themselves, the way his nerves rise in alarm at the stiffness of their posture, their commandeering adherence to military authority. Even when he takes in the parts before the whole, Adam can sense nothing of that dogma written in him – though there is _something_ there. Something solid. Steely, maybe, manifesting itself like the flickering edges of a ghost's form. It just, surely, isn't Garrison.

Silhouetted against the grey light of mid-morning, the young man can't be taller than Adam himself. Though he is initially seized with the thought that this must be someone elderly, it's only a second of readjusting before Adam realizes that he can't be any older, either, no matter the white hair threaded through his bangs or the worn spots in his coat or the jagged edged scar that stretches well beyond the bridge of his nose.

“I'm – looking for Adam?” The man says, voice a little rough around the edges, as if it, too, is wind chapped.

“Well, I'm sure there are plenty of people who are,” Sam says, almost amicably. “The police, for one, so you'll have to excuse our caution.”

“Oh.” The man falls quiet for a beat, another. “I'm not – are you – Adam?”

“That would be my overly prepared friend, here,” Sam replies, tilting his head in Adam's direction. He only realizes then that he's still holding the chair in front of himself; sighing, he walks out to the open space at the back of the foyer and sets it down.

“What do you want?” He asks, quick and stinging and facing away.

The man is not deterred. “I'm looking for exit papers. I was told that you were my best chance.”

Adam makes a sound in the back of his throat, sitting heavily on the chair he's set down. “Papers are expensive.”

“I've worked. I've saved some.”

“The right papers cost more than _some_.”

“Then I'll _work_.” The flinty quality in the man's voice brings Adam's attention back to him, keeps his gaze and his focus. “I'm not _useless_. In Platt City I hauled lumber. In Kane I worked in the kitchen –”

“Platt City?” Despite himself, Adam leans forward, brow furrowed and lips pulled into a thoughtful frown. “That's all the way south from here. Hundreds of miles. – Are you running from something?”

Exit papers, a nationwide trek; something softer than Adam was aware he still had sits heavy in the pit of his stomach, but he's spent too long dealing with the here and now to be lost to the unexpected tide of feeling. If he's been sought out by someone on the run – enough that they want to flee the Republic's borders – the _trouble_ that would bring –

“No.” The man's expression has steeled over, some of the wide-eyed caution replaced by fire that could, perhaps, burn through the early, frosty gloom of the season. “I need to get somewhere.”

“Somewhere,” Adam echoes, curiously stringing the word out to prompt an explanation. Which comes harder than he would have thought; a darkness crosses the man's expression, iron fletched and frustrated, and when he speaks it looks like he's forcing himself.

“I need to get to Arus. So if you can just – point me where I need to go –”

Sam sucks in a breath at the same time Adam echoes, again, “ _Arus_.” Arus – _somewhere_ , indeed. “No money for exit papers, thinking that you can just get across the border to _Arus_. You'd be better off making a run for it. You don't need us for that.”

“Are you –” A little flash of color comes back to the man's cheeks, enough that Adam recognizes how bloodless his face had been before, how bloodless it still is. But the kindling irritation lends it a little vibrancy. “– I asked for _help_ , there's no need to be so _rude_.”

“Our apologies,” Sam cuts in, smooth and even tempered. He's taken a seat, too, on one of the unbroken ottomans that still litter the front room. “We're just a little on edge – we were merely hoping you'd be someone else.”

“– Someone else?” The man looks more curious than mollified, but some of the fight has bled from his tone already.

Sam nods, once, gravely. “Someone who might not even exist.”

The man draws a deep, slow breath, as if trying to understand what that means. As he does, Adam watches him glance around the room, lingering on all the broken things that had once made this place the reception area, the ballroom, that it was meant to be. And then, Adam watches as the man loses the little color he'd regained in those heated moments, eyes slipping from the scattered fixtures to some middle distance, in a place that isn't here. His brow furrows but he's not as quick as Sam, who's already on his feet when the man starts murmuring.

“– They were laughing, dancing. This place – what is – ?”

Sam has a gentle hand on the man's elbow, now, steadying him. “The reception hall of the Obsidian Palace. Many balls were held in this very room. Are you alright? When did you last eat?”

The man turns to look at him but says nothing. Sam takes the opportunity to guide him to one of the other unoccupied, mostly whole chairs, and the man allows himself to be lead, sitting heavily even with the assistance. Sam frowns.

“Adam,” he says, still looking at the man, “Get him some water. And whatever food we have.”

“– This isn't a charity,” he says, but the show of protest is token at best, and it only takes another look before he is turning back to the frigid, largely unused kitchen where none of the appliances are in any shape to be used but the cabinets, at least, can hold things. Their stock is as thin here as it is out there, but he manages to cobble together some water and some of the fresh loaf that he'd gotten in the morning.

But it's not their lack of food that has him standing there, head hanging over the dust wrought counter, fingers curled into his palms tight enough to leave a mark.

Dizzy and strange, it's like he's been left out too long in the summer heat.

Foolish, impractical, _dangerous_ as Sam wants to coax him to say. Getting caught up in emotions that come from nowhere, mean nothing good, get in the way of getting out of this crumbling, desolate country alive before it's too late. Adam grabs the food and the glass with enough force to spill some of the water, and makes his way back out.

Sam is talking to the man when he gets back, both of their voices pitched low as if they won't disturb the detritus of years gone by in the front room that way. Adam does not follow suit, does not walk softer to complement them. He hands the man the glass and the bread without looking at him.

As if to purposefully oppose him, the man _does_ speak. He says: “Thank you.”

“Please, eat,” Sam cuts in, motioning at him. “I'm so sorry, all this time and I've neglected to ask your name.”

The man places the bread one-handed on his lap and uses the same to bring the glass to his lips. It glints dully in the thin light. He starts slowly, then maybe despite himself he drains half of it in one go, and pulls it away from himself with a fight. And then, instead of answering, he stares down at what he has: the glass, the little bit of food Adam could cobble together that's still a significant dent in what they have for the week. Blinking, lips parting, he glances up, first at Sam then at Adam. And despite his best efforts, Adam can't look away.

“– I don't know it,” the man finally says, voice so rough and catching that it sounds forced through. Adam's brow furrows.

“You don't _know_?” Sam asks.

“They – gave me a name. At the hospital, when they found me. Shiro.”

“Hospital?” Adam can't help himself. From where he'd sat back down he's now leaning forward, hands pressing on his knees. The man – Shiro – visibly locks his jaw, the muscle at its notch tensing, but then he looks back down at what Adam has given him and releases a long, thin sigh.

“When I was younger, I was found after some – accident. I wasn't – doing well. And I'd lost most of my memories. Even the hospital – it's... difficult to recall.”

Shiro's eyes are fixed on that middle distance once more, enough that it stills Adam's tongue and the questions that immediately come to it. On his other side, Sam is silent as well.

“I don't have much. Flashes of things – images, feelings. None of it that – makes too much sense. After they released me, I did whatever I could to make ends meet. Working whatever jobs I could find, sleeping wherever was warmest. The hospital was down south, in Platt City, so that's where I started. Once I got enough saved I started traveling north. Kane, Tasna, plenty of those little towns out in the countryside, working whatever jobs would take me. I had to – I had to get _here_ . You can't find exit papers anywhere else. And I knew I – I had to get to Arus. I _have_ to. I will. Whatever it takes. There's _something_ I have to get to.”

“– What is it?”

Adam surprises himself with the sound of his own voice, gentle around the edges, bleeding curiosity. It surprises Shiro, too, if the way he looks up, wide-eyed, is any indication. His lips part again in his hesitation.

But then, there it is: the fire that had been building throughout his explanation lights his gaze again, diminishes the pallor of his skin and his sunken posture, as if someone is trying to live through the image that Shiro presents.

“I don't know. But it's the only clue I have and it feels right. So, I'm _going_ to get there.”

It's the noise of Sam's chair that gets Adam's attention, an unobtrusive scraping sound as Sam leans back – catching Adam's eye for a split second before looking in Shiro's direction.

“The resemblance – it's truly uncanny.”

He doesn't have to think about the entire company's worth of actors that they've been funneling through the palace's doors for the last few months, with all their affected airs and overwrought performances, for Adam to latch onto a decision. Rocking to his feet, some slickness taking over his roughly hewn edges, he crosses over and places a hand on Shiro's shoulder.

“Maybe we can help each other after all. We happen to be heading to Arus ourselves.”

* * *

“So, basically, I've got to – create a whole new persona? I'm not going to lie.”

“ _No_ , no no, nothing so – _well_. You see.”

Shiro waits patiently as Sam searches for his phrasing. From the corner of his eye, he sees Adam leaning against the wall, holding a book open without reading it. He wants to keep watching him, waiting to get a glimpse of what he'll do next, but he turns back to Sam all the same.

Sam, who's moving to settle into the seat beside him, gesturing in large sweeping motions. “It's not about creating what isn't, it's about allowing yourself to remember what _is_.”

Shiro raises a brow. Sam sighs.

“There's no harm in simply trying, my boy. You've reached a dead end on your search, haven't you? Then picking a new route, opening yourself up to the possibility of solving this mystery another way, might give you the push forward you're looking for.”

Despite his better instincts, Shiro feels his expression soften. There is still something that aches in him, rusted over and howling indignantly at all of this – at being so overwhelmed by a little water, a little food, some shelter from the frosted over fall outside that he'll expose these vulnerable, _weak_ parts of himself in hopes that they'll yield something. At being so pathetic as to seek help when he should – he should be able to do this _himself_ , shouldn't he?

He might not know where this pride comes from, but it's _his_ and he'll be damned if he won't protect it.

Even if pretending to be — sorry, _remembering_ to be — the lost prince Takashi Shirogane seems as if it will seriously test that.

But Sam's voice is – different. From what he has known. It's soft in a way that calls to the empty hollows behind his ribs that echo morosely when he passes by couples, parents with children, friends, _families_ together in every city he moves through. And so he feels himself nodding, the worry clenched around the idea of deceiving some family burning away at the warmth in his tone.

“Alright. So then I just have to... become this person that I don't – remember being.”

“That's where we come in. Adam.”

Only when he's called does Adam join them. He crosses over, settling on a knee when there's no readily available chair next to Shiro's. For the moment that he takes to adjust himself, Shiro studies his profile, but then he's directed to the journal that Adam opens for all three of them peer over, filled with words and photographs on every weathered page.

“You were born in the Summer Palace, on the southern coast,” Sam says, pointing at a picture of a sprawling estate and soaring palace settled against a vast expanse of sea. Shiro glances at it, looks away, then looks back.

It is a whirlwind of information that comes after, a dam bursting, releasing the flood of many lifetimes' worth of biographies and places and people and names. Horseback riding, holidays with distant cousins (all of them counts and countesses and archdukes and every other title he's never known existed before), playing tricks on the palace staff, growing into a young man as soon as the Emperor and Empress adopted their second son, his younger brother. Shiro hesitates on those pages, makes to trace the photographs of the royal family and their two small children, then stops himself when his stomach inexplicably twists into a burning knot.

The first few days pass, for lack of a better word, _helplessly_. If he's going to do this, he's going to _do_ it. But doing it means memorizing the entire, branching, Shirogane family tree – along with their multiple titles, their habits and mannerisms, their frequency at court, their pets and friends and how they behaved at parties and how he (how the _lost prince_ ) would have felt about them.

“When you walk, you must _float_ ,” Sam says one day, having left the list of names behind to work on etiquette. He's standing tall, one arm folded behind his back and the other outstretched as if offering it to some imaginary someone. “As if it takes no effort.”

“Oh, _only_ that,” Shiro snips, and he swears he hears Adam make a little sound that almost rings like amusement. But when he turns, Adam has schooled his features back to observant neutrality.

“You _can_ do it,” Sam says pointedly, “But you'll have to try. C'mon, jacket off. We'll practice.”

Shiro rolls the possibility around of refusing as if mulling over some fine food, as if he had the luxury of it. In the end, he slips the jacket from his shoulders and places it against the back of his chair – stays faced away long enough that he doesn't need to see if there's a reaction to the sleeve that still hangs empty on his right side.

He doesn't know if it's his own projecting or if he truly did not wait long enough, but he thinks there is something thick and unspoken between them when he turns back to the pair. Something that he doesn't have time for, so he simply says, “Next you'll be telling me that princes _fly_. Let's get this over with.”

Sam moves to demonstrate. Shiro does not look Adam's way.

The lesson on posture is only mildly more bearable than the questions that could have arisen at the revelation of his arm. He's no more suited to this than he thinks he would be otherwise; his upper body doesn't account for the heaviness of his steps, the way he trips over himself at the light-footed pattern Sam demonstrates for him. Frustration is a close and steadily growing companion.

“You _know_ ,” he says through his teeth after a particularly embarrassing stumble, “ _You're_ not walking all that straight yourself.”

“It's all that _bowing_ he used to do at court,” Adam says – more humored, just as caustic. Pushing himself off the wall, he makes a flourishing motion with his hand that Sam waves off.

“I was _honored_ to be there. An invited guest – it's a sign of respect.”

“A sign of something, alright. You'll never catch me making that mistake again.”

“Ah! You admit that you've bowed before!”

“Oh, please. I was a _kid_. What did I know?”

As they fall into the pattern of their bickering (he registers, idly, at how familiar it's become), Shiro imagines what it would be like – a sea of people, dressed in clothes finer than he's ever known, maybe drinking some expensive, frivolous cocktail, looking to him for some cue. He plants one foot behind the other, brackets his waist with his arm, and sweeps into a bow.

And then rises to silence.

“– We didn't teach you that,” Adam says quietly when Shiro turns. His expression softens for its surprise, and Shiro cannot look away from the way his deep brown eyes catch what little light leaks in through the broken roof above. Not until Sam claps him on the back, his smile bright and proud.

“You're a natural! Come, let's try some more.”

Dinner is a constant trial – every night it's _elbow in_ and _sit up straight_ and _don't slurp the soup_ , and there's something ridiculous enough about fine etiquette used for days-old bread and scraps of cheese and cold soup that it nearly sends him laughing and scowling all at once. But it's _food_ , it's here, and this is more than he'd be able to buy on his sweeping salary alone, so he swallows back the complaints and does what he's told. Middlingly.

(Better. He can do better. He _should_ do better.)

Days bleed into weeks and months, and he finds that, whatever his initial reservations and how wild a dream it all is, at its heart this is all a task to focus on, a routine. And a far cry from the years out in the country, stealing hours of sleep in remote barns or bartering what he has for a night indoors, learning how to tell berries and mushrooms apart and hunting what he can in the forests the sporadically spread through the Republic.

He learns things. Like: Sam starts every morning poring over the daily paper, and that he's gone from stealing them out of the trash to befriending the local vendor and talking him into giving him a discount. Adam keeps his jacket on longer than either of them after coming in, only warming after an hour or two away from the chill outside. All three of them are more than happy to replace a meal with coffee, and it's mercifully cheaper than some of their other groceries. When they get enough food to make something decent, Adam always cooks. He likes reading, and talking about what he reads. Sam likes sketching out designs for houses, cars, gardens.

Shiro clings for a while to the roughness picked up from the road. He steels himself against the warmth that they make for themselves in the ramshackle was-a-palace, but there is something inexorable about the draw of Adam and Sam's back and forth, and the nights when he loses the fight against exhaustion and hunger he can't help but listen to their banter as he reads over the books and books and books of notes, and none of it feels terribly wrong at all.

There is, perhaps, just the one sticking point.

It has been nearly two months and Shiro is still struggling to juggle the names of the prince's ( _his_ , the _prince's_ , _his_ ) third cousin's children. Along with absolutely everything else.

“So his son would be – Prince – Yuuto?”

“Yuuma,” Sam corrects, gently enough that it feels like nails on metal. Shiro locks his jaw, nods, and echoes the name. Then promptly swallows against the rushing frustration when it looks like Sam reads him, like he hasn't done a good enough job disguising his upset because Sam herds him into a simpler review.

“Okay!” He says, enthused. Shiro doesn't notice Adam watching him carefully from where he's sitting across the room. “Let's go over it from the top. Who was your grandmother?”

He bites on the answer for a moment, then sighs into it. “ – Empress Dowager Natsuki.”

“Your great-grandmother?”

“Grand Empress Dowager Kinu.”

“Your best friend?”

Warmth infuses his voice, soaking in like sunshine. “H – My little brother, Keith.”

And then Adam's voice, sharp and clinical from the other side of the room: “ _Wrong_ , it's –”

“I _know_ who my best friend would be!”

“ _Hey_ , that's –”

“No!” It's so – petulant and silly, the way he can't keep his anger where it should be, but his body has betrayed him and Shiro feels his face burn with the tide of feeling and frustration, the effort of keeping it in. He looks away, unable to meet Adam's eyes or Sam's, hand curling into a fist at his side. “ _Enough,_ I – I'm going to work on this. Alone.”

Adam makes a noise as if to say something but falls silent. Everything is silent, until Sam breaks it.

“Shiro. Look at me?”

Sam is holding out a hand. Shiro glances over at Adam, at his drawn features and the anger written into the set of his jaw, feels his own ire flare. But then he looks at Sam and his extended hand, asking for something so simple and painless from him. He takes it, allows himself to be guided up out of his seat and across the room until it is only the two of them. In that moment, Sam's hand moving from his to settle comfortably on his arm, Shiro is forcibly reminded of the tableau again: fathers with their children, bundling them warm against the snows of winter, walking with them hand in hand. His frustration throbs, and though he knows it's probably not frustration at all, he can't quite admit that.

“I used to visit the Imperial Court regularly,” Sam says, but it's more the subject of his words than their warm timbre that catches Shiro's attention – enough that the rough waters of his temper recede a little. “I didn't have any title, but my work was well known enough that they extended an invitation to some of the more important receptions.”

“ – Your work?”

“Mm. I am – _was_ , I suppose now, an inventor. And an architect.”

The rough waters have gone out to sea. Shiro's interest catches. “Seriously?”

“Very much so!” Some of Sam's cheer is tempered by an edge of nostalgia, palpable. “I helped construct some of the most famous monuments in the Empire – when it was still the Empire, of course. In fact, I had a chance to assist on the Bellemeyer Bridge, decades ago now.”

The glittering passage between what had been the Empire and what had been Altea, famous enough to live on as a ghost even now. Shiro is not surprised when he catches the flicker of sadness crossing Sam's expression; without thinking he reaches up, dislodging Sam's hand to place his own on the other's shoulder – a little solemn, a little understanding for the unspeakable feeling that comes with things long gone.

Sam glances down at the contact, then up back at him with a softness that Shiro cannot bear fully. He glances down.

“Ah well, the point _is_ ,” Sam cants his head to the side good-naturedly, “I've spent my fair share of time hobnobbing with the royal sort.”

“Hobnobbing?” Distantly, Shiro thinks that Adam would laugh at the phrasing. He almost smiles at the image.

“ _Hobnobbing_. Brushing elbows. Cutting a rug at a party or two.”

“– Oh my god.”

“And I have to say,” his voice pitches lower, and Shiro finds himself leaning in to hear better. Sam's eyes twinkle with sincerity. “Very few of them possessed the kind of diligence I see in you, young man. Even now, I have no doubt you'd hold your own among them.”

He should – be better at things. He should be stronger, more cunning, more able to bear the weight of the Republic and its freezing cold and its long, lonely nights. But whether or not Shiro is doing as well as he should at connecting the pieces of his life together (at surviving, and living), he forgets his guilt for a moment. Sam's voice brokers no argument; it is tender and furtive, as if he is divulging a great secret, and some stony wall in Shiro crumbles under the warmth that glows bright from within.

“– So, are we ready to keep going?”

Naturally, the whole, delicate moment collapses in on itself the moment Adam ghosts up behind Shiro and prods at them from over his shoulder. Rolling his eyes and throwing his hand up in the air, Shiro breaks away from them and back to the pile of books they've put together – an irritated but definite token of concession.

Behind him, he hears Sam say, “Tact never _has_ been your forte.”

* * *

Apparently, Shiro is not off the hook until they've mastered _all_ the courtly arts. (Eating your food with the right utensils is only a small part of the whole thing, which is somewhat disappointing given how complicated and ultimately frivolous that all seems.) Sam pokes him once in the back, and Shiro automatically responds by standing straighter.

“Feel the music, let it guide you. Try again.”

 _Feel the music, let it guide you_ – as if there aren't a hundred other things to distract him from something as abstract as _feel the music_. Not only does dancing require floating backwards, he's spent the last half an hour trying coordinate with Adam's steps, their rhythms slipping out of line and stumbling over stiff postures and unsure limbs. And the music, that final piece, barely comes out of the phonograph with any sort of clarity. Perhaps he should be grateful that the thing survived the downfall of this palace at all, perhaps he is being churlish and selfish, but then Adam readjusts their held hands _again_ and Shiro bites back against his mounting ire.

“ _One_ , two, three, _two_ , two three.”

Adam's hand is warm in his, overly hot, and his other is tense where it's braced against Shiro's back. _As if it's such an imposition, as if he hadn't been the one to suggest this plan in the first place_. Shiro looks anywhere but Adam's face (only an inch away, maybe two at the most), fixating on the wall behind them, tripping as Adam pushes back into a step that Shiro wasn't prepared for. The glare he summons when Adam steps directly on his foot is fiery, and it's only then that he looks Adam in the eye to deliver the silent message.

Adam is glaring back – and then, for just a second, he isn't.

Shiro has no time to process what that means.

“ _Relax_ , relax.” Sam has one hand on his shoulder now. “You'll learn both roles, we're merely starting here. For now, you need to let Adam lead. You've got this.”

What he _has_ is swift retaliation – and Adam limping off when Shiro returns the favor of damaged toes.

“Boys!”

No rest for the wicked, then.

Their next go at the four count of the waltz pattern goes – less painfully than the previous. Adam still meets his glare when Shiro forgets to follow his signal for the backwards turn, and Shiro still holds tight, resisting against Adam's lead. Once, though, their synchronous steps fall in perfect time with an exaggerated downbeat, and when Shiro and Adam's gazes meet, Shiro doesn't see any of the irritation he'd come to expect in the exercise written there – doesn't feel it in the set of his own expression.

 _One_ , two, three. _Two_ , two, three. Distracted by the way Adam's gaze is so absent of the thorny, blunt veil it so often wears, Shiro does not notice when he follows into the guided step, _back – side – closed_. Only that, all of a sudden, it makes sense. Adam matches him beat for beat, sliding into the spaces that Shiro creates at his urging, pulling back when Shiro pushes ahead. His hand is steady in Shiro's, the other on his shoulder, and it's no longer too hot, too stiff, too awkwardly held. Their intertwined fingers move just a little, in time with each circling pass.

As they cross over one of the haphazard, dappled pools of watery December light that fall through the ceiling, Shiro is not looking at the back wall, or at their moving feet, or at their uncomfortably – now, comfortably – joined hands. He is watching Adam's face. There is a fall of softness that overtakes his roughed-over edges, and in the thin light his eyes glow brighter than the overcast sky, catching on a brilliant amber until the two find themselves in shadow once more, illumination winnowing away like an unraveling dream.

The music has been going uninterrupted for a while, but Shiro only just notices it. His vision swims; he's warm and swirling with the motion of the waltz.

“That's – a lot of spinning,” he says, and he wasn't aware that he was trying for humor but warmth splashes gold against the backs of his ribs when Adam huffs a laugh.

“Ah – yeah.” His voice is quiet and precise, as if it takes up only the space between them and nothing more. “Leave it to the royals.”

“- Yeah.”

Adam hums thoughtfully, then a crease mars the space between his brows. “Are – you dizzy? Maybe we should stop.”

Something instinctual in Shiro wants to agree without argument, but then the world starts to resolve a little, so, hushed, he replies instead, “We already have.”

“Excellent job!”

The slowly resolving world comes back in crashing shards, enough that Shiro feels it in his jaw when Sam claps him on the back. Clinging desperately to the evaporating mood that had twined itself into verdant existence between them, Shiro looks over at Adam – but he is looking down, not hard but somehow, inexplicably, far away. He is seized for a flash with the desire to reach out, to not allow another thing to be lost, but also to curl away from the intensity of it.

In the end, he just turns to Sam with a serene smile plastered onto his lips. “You were right, in the end.”

“See? I do know a thing or two.” He punctuates the statement with a wink. Maybe he doesn't feel the thing that was and now isn't in the space that Shiro and Adam's bodies just occupied. Maybe it was never there to begin with.

Regardless, Sam sweeps him into another dance – much faster, with a livelier arrangement of the same song. The polka appears to be harder, but with its quickness and all the effort required, Shiro sinks into the task, and by the end of it his grin is not so manufactured. The sun is well set by the time they're finished, the night's chill sneaking in where the walls and roof are patchy, but Shiro is flush with exertion much different than a day hauling wood or scrubbing down a kitchen.

“These old bones aren't what they used to be,” Sam says through a sigh, absentmindedly putting a hand on the crown of Shiro's head. “But you did magnificently today, my boy. Time for a good night's sleep. We start again in the morning!”

After ruffling through Shiro's hair, Sam stretches and makes his way back to the room he'd claimed as a bedroom long before Shiro arrived. A curious ache settles around Shiro's shoulders, bitter and terrified and fervent, and he's a beat late in calling out his thanks to Sam. – And then he turns to where Adam is picking up some of the loose papers to store them under heavier books.

“You too,” Shiro says to him. Adam doesn't look up, but he stills. “Thanks. For working with me. I – know it wasn't easy.”

It's a few long seconds, a few deep breaths, before Adam straightens up. His lips are curled in a grin that pulls harder on one side, but Shiro can't find the nameless thing he shouldn't even be looking for in his eyes. “I don't think it's supposed to be easy.” His voice is that same quick, precise timbre that it usually is, but it's lacking a quality Shiro can't name. “You did fine.”

Still, he watches Adam leave until he disappears down the hallway and out of sight.

Beside him on a chair is the journal filled with photographs and entries and explanations of a whole family tree's worth of lives. Shiro runs his fingers across the cover, picks it up, feels its well-loved spine.

 _A palace by the sea_.

* * *

The rumors never end.

They didn't start months ago. They started much earlier than that. From the first night of the siege, the people of the Republic have met violence, destruction, chaos, and its long, limping aftermath with unquenchable hope. There was plenty to hope for in the beginning: the war to end, a member of the royal family to have survived, peace. Rough hewn years in the interim saw the erosion of that hope – the shift in power leaving those secure in their livelihoods suddenly grappling with an economy, a structure they didn't understand. The little luxuries, the softness, those were the first to go. And those who had hoped that their own poverty would also change faced the reality of conditions that did not improve.

Softness and luxury are liabilities. Nothing proved that so clearly as the destruction of two countries and the devastation of a third. Sacrifices for the greater good are sacrifices well made. And still, nine years later, they cling to fantasies of a life that left absolutely everyone vulnerable to its destruction.

Senior Commander Iverson tells himself this, and he tells this to anyone who raises a concern at the direction of the Garrison's leadership of the Republic. He is not the first to say it; it is a message dutifully attended to and given down from on high, from the lips of the Admiral to his ear. Depending on sweet words and lavish parades and flower festivals was dangerous before the war, and it is dangerous now.

Yet _still_ , his office has been receiving intelligence of gossip about a lost prince _every day_ for _months_.

“We're nipping this in the bud,” he says to the cluster off junior officers in the bullpen outside of his office. They straighten immediately, stop whispering amongst themselves. “When he gets here, send him in straight away.”

Playing at being the _lost prince_ – does no one understand what the unpreparedness of the Ivy Throne led to? The fragility of the Republic? They barely survived a war that decimated ally and foe alike and still, _still_ they want to live in a fantasy world that never stood a chance.

Iverson's office is sound and stately, all paneled in dark wood that gleams even in the institutionally funded lighting. Meticulously well kept, it is a far cry from the state of the main avenue, glimpsed in the window in back and to the side of his desk. He stands there, watching the grey-clothed people make their way through the grey-clothed day, assiduously ignoring anything but the work at hand. As always.

“Commander.”

Even when he hears the door open, the clipped and overly formal voice of whatever junior officer has brought the suspect in, he doesn't turn. He merely holds up a hand until he hears the door close, then laces his fingers together behind his back with military precision.

The suspect says nothing, but that suits him just fine.

“Young man,” he says, tasting steel around every word. “You have seen these streets as well as I have. You are as much a citizen of this Republic as I, and surely you must not have forgotten the destruction that brought us all to the state we've come to know. The state we are, now and always, seeking to rebuild. Better. Stronger. With no room for the weakness that led us here in the first place.”

 _We will make a nation that will never fall victim again_ , the Admiral had said, after the war. _We will not spend our days in fear, nor in dreams_.

They will not succumb.

“This is why I am here, in this office. In this city. To find that weakness. And make sure that it does not spread throughout our newly reforged nation.”

“Why was I brought here?”

There's enough iron in the man's voice that Iverson cannot help but note its presence, even if he does not allow it to throw him off course. “That is what I intend to discover –”

What _does_ throw him off course is the recognition that comes when he finally turns on his heel – fluttering from confusion to confirmation in only a moment. He blinks, more caught by surprise than he has been in years.

“ _You_ – I know you. You were – that street sweeper, weren't you?”

The man (yes, he's sure of it – if the voice hadn't been enough, the scar that bridges his nose and underscores his eyes is unforgettable) locks his jaw a little, but otherwise does not react. But he doesn't argue and surely that means he remembers – just a few weeks ago, a moment of quiet humanity, a moment that Iverson had been able to reach out in the wake of a truck backfiring, steadying the young man's sudden panic. _Direct action_ , he'd thought at the time. The reason they're rebuilding the Republic in the first place: to help poor souls like this.

He's not trembling now, and he's taller than Iverson remembers.

Clinical joviality colors Iverson's voice, now. “Glad to see you looking better, son. It's probably not easy to work when you're so unwell.”

“I've been faring just fine.” The man's voice continues to wrap around some iron core, some of it glinting in his eyes. “I haven't done anything wrong.”

“No, no, we must merely be careful how we proceed nowadays. Come, Shiro, sit. Let's discuss this rationally.”

“How d'you know –” Confusion is very short lived. Sharp observation replaces it, and his jaw locks tighter. When he asks the question, he doesn't phrase it as one. “What are the charges.”

“Ah – ” Iverson draws back a little, then gathers himself and makes his way to his desk, gesturing to the seat opposite it. “None of that. This is just a – conversation.”

“A conversation.”

“We only have a few things to get straight, here.”

Shiro is still standing near the door where he'd been left by the time Iverson sits, but it's not the presence of an entire battalion's worth of officers between here and the exit that assures the commander that the man won't leave. He's vindicated when Shiro crosses the room with all that iron and fire and stubborn determination that was woven into his voice now in his stride, sitting straight when he takes the chair.

“What we do, as officers of the Garrison, is for the Republic. It is _always_ for the Republic.” Iverson does not look away, and neither does Shiro. He nearly laughs in the back of his throat; if only his staff had the same grit. “You know as much as I how much our country has suffered in this last decade.”

“Sure.” It doesn't really sound like an answer. Iverson presses on regardless.

“The way things were before – you've seen what's become of the old order. What it led to. How long before the next invader takes its chances at our border? This world _must_ be preserved. I will be the one who preserves it. By any means necessary.”

His voice is not quite as icy as he'd been hoping for, but he wonders if even if his best showing would be enough to faze the young man sitting across him. Metamorphosed from the first time they met, even in passing – he wonders how successful their order would be, with someone so stoic on their side.

He wonders how dangerous it would be, to let someone so stoic go.

It would take a phone call. Less than a day – less than an hour and the MPs would do their job and do it well. Shiro would never see the light of day again. The Republic would continue on, undisturbed by even a single, obstinate dissident.

“You're only doing your job,” Shiro says neatly, voice much smoother than his expression.

Iverson regards him silently.

“And I hope you continue to do yours.” He drops his glance to the paperwork on his desk – Shiro's profile. The daily briefing. The orders for next week. “I hear they are difficult to come by, these days.”

Shiro hesitates, just a little, but some of that shaken trepidation winks into existence before he adjusts himself and it disappears. “If that's all – ?”

 _We are the new age. We are the last age_.

He holds Shiro's gaze for longer than he needs to, but Shiro does not hesitate again. Iverson releases it with a nod, allowing him to leave.

“– This isn't a fairy tale,” he says to the young man's retreating back. “Make sure you remember that.”

Shiro says nothing in reply, and then he is gone.

* * *

“We need to keep a lower profile than usual. I'm telling you, he's not going to let this go.”

“What was his name?”

“Commander Iverson, but it's not just him. He's running the whole city headquarters. I wouldn't be surprised if he was taking orders from the top.”

Shiro waits as Adam processes the news, holding onto a breath until Adam nods – only then, unbidden, does some of the tension that has been wrapped around his spine ease its grip. It's just enough that he can feel the throbbing in the set of his shoulders from how stiffly they'd been held before he pushes it from his mind, deftly ignoring the pain.

“Then we'll just have to be more careful –”

“Ooh! Lookit here!”

From the shadowed recesses of the alley off the main, the unfamiliar voice crashes like the metal of a trash can lid on the unforgiving concrete. Shiro freezes in place, Adam too a step ahead. He's angled so that Shiro cannot read his expression but even if he wasn't – the entirety of Shiro's expression is on the mouth of the alley, and the focus only grows in intensity when figures emerge, one after another.

No better dressed than either of them, they carry a different air than Shiro has come to know with Adam and Sam – but not something he doesn't recognize. They're loose with alcohol, languid and lackadaisical and leering. The first, the one who must have called to them, makes his way to Adam, learning an elbow on his shoulder.

“You don't come around here anymore,” he says, exaggeration the lamenting. Shiro only sees Adam from his periphery, sees a little motion – maybe he's tensing.

“We don't want trouble, Ilya.” Adam's voice is that low and precise thing Shiro has grown accustomed to, as if he aims it with enviable accuracy.

It doesn't seem to matter here.

One of the other men, wobbling and confident, enters Shiro's personal sphere. Every muscle in his body howls in indignation and alarm, but he stands his ground and doesn't give up an inch. Not when the man leans in, not when he makes to push at his shoulder then pulls back.

“ _No_ , no – the lord of the palace doesn't have _time_ for trouble anymore, does he?” The first man leans enough weight that Shiro sees Adam bend backwards with it – unwillingly, if Shiro knows him. His jaw locks. A third elbow digs into his back, so unexpected that before he has time to berate himself for losing track of the three of them Shiro's reflexes reach their threshold.

He rears his own elbow back, driving it hard and fast into something soft, something that yields. The man behind him draws in a shuddering breath, close enough that Shiro can smell the alcohol on him, but only for a moment. Everyone else is moving, then. The first tries to grab Adam in a headlock, but before Shiro can follow his instincts and surge over to them, someone grabs his empty sleeve. They don't have time to register what that means; as soon as he feels a tug, he's turning on his heel and smashing the flat of his palm in the vicinity of where a nose should be. Something splinters at the contact, and he notes it with pragmatic vindication before he is seeking out the human heat on the other side of himself, driving a knee into what he hopes is a solar plexus.

Either way, the man goes down, and by the time Shiro disentangles with the guys who'd been on him, Adam has the first on the ground, standing above him until he scuttles back, staggers to his knees then his feet, and then roughly grabs the others by their collars to yank them out of the way.

 _Danger_. Shiro chases after them without noting the direction they're taking – that they're desperately trying to gain distance – and reaches out to drag them back.

“Shiro!”

Like a physical thing, Shiro runs headlong into the sound of Adam's voice and stops short. The men have already disappeared down the avenue. He breathes heavily, steadily – then immediately grabs for the collar of whoever has their hand on his shoulder.

Adam holds his gaze, wide eyed and breathless, too many expressions flitting across his features for Shiro to read. They stay like that until the world comes back and Shiro sees it, _feels_ it: his hand curled into the fabric of Adam's jacket, knuckles pearly white with the strength of his grip. Painstakingly, he releases his fingers one by one, staring divorced at his hand, unbelievingly at Adam when he doesn't immediately scramble away.

Their labored breathing fills the silence.

“Are – are you alright?”

Adam's question bursts crystalline and freezing and staggering in the cavern of Shiro's chest. He looks down at his hand, back up at Adam, and moves his lips without forming words a few times until it catches.

Breathless, Shiro replies, “ _You_ – I – are _you_?”

He doesn't understand the confusion written into Adam's brown, the frown at his lips. Shiro has seen Adam's irritation, his bitterness, his frustration – Shiro has felt them with him, in the long days and longer nights, freezing in the Republic's winter, practicing for a future that feels as inevitably far as the horizon. But he has seen Adam's laughter, too, at the little quips he trades with Sam, the times with things fit together like cogs for a beat or two. Shiro has seen him irate and pleased, and this fits with neither.

It's – _soft_. Shiro burns with it.

Adam's hand is still raised a little, palm up, open. He struggles a little, Shiro can see the fight in his jaw, and then he settles on, “Where did you learn that?”

It's not pointed; it doesn't dig. It's a little more unbearable for it. Shiro swallows, steps back.

“– You pick up things along the way.”

The rest is kept locked safely away – because it's true enough. It's true enough that he's learned to protect himself, to keep himself alive trekking years up north. But the rest (losing himself, sinking so deep into _fight_ he forgets that _flight_ exists, the ferocious protectiveness that surges to life in the cavern of his chest like a hungry lion) – Shiro looks away and releases a long, heavy breath like it might do some good.

When, really, the only thing doing anything is Adam's voice.

“I'm glad.”

Shiro stills.

Adam continues, “They're really not the nicest guys, particularly when they've been drinking all night.”

“You – know them?”

From his periphery, Shiro sees Adam move – sees him motion somewhere, and only then does Shiro look up. At the edge of an overpass there are crates piled high, some of them positioned well enough to sit on. Adam's already settling down. After a moment's deliberation, Shiro follows suit.

(This close, he can feel Adam's warmth. Human warmth, but so different from the heat of their would-be muggers.)

“Sure,” Adam says plainly, leaning one elbow on his knee. “ _Knew_ would be better. Haven't seen them in a year, at least. They were useful when times were thin and they knew who was hiring for work, but now, well. I guess things have changed.”

Adam's voice is so – even. So _Adam_. Shiro falls into its idiosyncratic rhythm, unwittingly allowing his shoulders to relax, shushing the complaints of his body as if it is second, even first, nature. Before long he is looking up again, caught unawares as he glimpses the way the last breath of sunset has pooled across Adam's profile – a glow in his hair, a light in his eyes.

Shiro's lips soften.

“So tough,” he says, and there's a ghost of amusement in his voice but it's not unkind. Adam glances over at him, raising an eyebrow, but Shiro can see that same amusement in the cant of his almost-there grin.

“Of course I am. How do you think I've made it this far? We do what we can.”

 _We do what we can_. It settles not uncomfortably behind Shiro's sternum, a kind of belonging that should be dangerous but so thoroughly kindles the aching emptiness that longs for something he can't remember that he (however foolishly) allows it.

“Did they do that to you?” Shiro doesn't know he's going to ask the question until it comes, but he also feels no desire to take it back. Not even when he senses the little thrill of surprise that rolls down Adam's back, the way he startles.

“Do what?”

“You were favoring your ribs when we met. You only just stopped. Did they...?”

“ _God_ –” Adam exhales it like it's more of a laugh or a sigh than a word, and another unreadable thing flashes across his expression. Less soft, almost amused, so, _so_ familiar even though Shiro has never seen it before. Like he could know it if he could just reach it. But he can't, so he listens to Adam's explanation instead. “– Sam said it. I'm not very popular with a lot of people. The MPs are particularly – heavy handed in their opinion.”

It's like a smile hewn roughly from gnarled wood, full of splinters and densely packed. For a staggering moment, Shiro is seized with the urge and reach out to take Adam's hand, even if there is nothing he can do for bruised ribs, or healing ribs, or the presence of the Garrison's police, or the world around him. But he wants to, anyway: wants to take all the warmth he has and place it in Adam's palm, as if it could ever be enough. Except the second he moves he is confronted with the memory of their last touch, with his hand fisted against Adam's collar, ready to be one more source of pain.

He rests his hands in his lap, instead.

“D'you think there's more to life than surviving it?”

Deep, rosy sunlight shifts as Adam looks at him, then away – then stands, extending a hand.

“C'mon.”

And that's all it takes: Adam shedding sunset and his own glowing light, and the fight against himself is gone. Shiro takes his hand without an argument. Adam leads them across the overpass, down another block, then turns to a side street, and it's there that the world opens up. The street laces over one of the canals, a wrought iron fence cordoning it off and it's mostly undestroyed, a remnant of something beautiful no longer out of reach. Buildings soar up on either side, some of them interesting with glass paneling or a domed church spire, all of it bathed in the deep blush of the sinking sun. The water that might have been a dull grey in the morning glitters lavender and red, and the rays of the sinking light glance off metal and glass like so many stars beset close enough to touch.

 _Wow_ , Shiro thinks. And, “ _Wow_ ,” he breathes. Beside him, Adam makes a low, soft noise.

“It's a good view. I guess there will be a few things I miss, after all.”

When Shiro looks over, Adam is leaning with both elbows against the iron fence, his gaze fixed on the illuminated water lapping gently below them. The warmth in Shiro's chest is so much like a spring breeze blowing like a gale, and all he wants to do is stay in this moment, watch Adam watching the bits of the Republic that have stayed like this: peaceful, beautiful, calm.

He wants it so much that for a single passing second, it eclipses the driving desire to uncover what that something is calling him to Arus. To find out if that something is home.

A chill rakes down his spine, and he looks away. He doesn't see Adam looking over at him in the same instance.

The sun continues its descent; when the rose turns to dark violent, Adam finally says, “Alright, tell me where the royal coronations happen.”

Shiro huffs an almost-laugh. “Officially, at the Imperial Shrine, but heirs are sworn in before the court at the Obsidian Palace.”

“And what are the major festivals open to the public?”

“ _Adam_.” Shiro looks back at him and they catch each other's glance. Some of the chill of earlier has eased; this is natural, and Shiro's body wants to follow the rhythm of their conversation without deviating to the shadowed caverns of guilt and loss that wind their way through him. “Let's do something else.”

Adam looks contemplative, but not unwilling. “Like what?”

“Find out where I belong?” The joke is all dry around the edges, a little morbid but comfortable in its self-deprecation. Adam's eyes flash behind his glasses.

“Then practice. Convince his highness of who you are and you'll take care of that.” His posture is so easy, swaying back and then forward with his casually pointing hand, and Shiro can't help but let the bitter humor fade into a more genuine laugh.

“You have an answer for everything, don't you?”

“I'm fairly intelligent.”

Shiro is seized with the strangest urge to stick his tongue out at that. Instead he sidesteps Adam, extending his own hand with a flourish, and is largely looking to see how he'll react when he says, “Then dance with me. I need the practice.”

His reward is the sincere surprise that flitters across Adam's face, lips parted and eyes wide, and the way he unquestioningly takes Shiro's hand even when he puts up the token protest, “There's no music.”

“Aren't we supposed to be good at surviving? We'll make it up as we go.”

“That hardly seems like practice – ”

“ _One_ , two, three. _One_ , two, three.”

There is just enough light left to make the street glow with its angle and radiance, and Adam's protest is cut off by Shiro's lead. The feeling has come back: the comfort, the single minded desire to simply be, and it's no less terrifying but Shiro has already experienced it once and that's all he needs to make a mental catalogue and compartmentalize it with the other things he doesn't pay attention to, like pain.

This is real: Adam allowing him to lead, Adam here at all with the sunset tangled in his hair and all of his answers and his even keel and the hints of deeper emotion peeking out at the sides – all of his anger and hope and self assuredness and even that softness that Shiro doesn't understand. Adam, unafraid of him. Adam, in it together with him.

Without realizing it, Shiro hums. It's nonsensical, notes bouncing against each other in a facsimile of a waltz's timing, dipping on each count of one. He feels the music without hearing it, lets it talk to his feet until he's not sure if he's following the melody or the melody is following him. He extends his arm and Adam graciously turns out before returning to hold, his smile glinting in the whirling motion and the last gasps of sun.

“What's that song?” Adam asks, and Shiro doesn't know how to answer so he laughs instead.

“I have no idea,” he breathes through a chuckle, bending them into another turn, much smoother than they managed the first time around. “It just sort of – came to me.”

“It's pretty.”

“Yeah?” Shiro flushes a little. “It's – ”

– _our lullaby!_

A high voice rushes at him like a train and Shiro freezes. It must throw Adam off the rhythm, the way he stumbles and clutches tighter to Shiro's hand, but Shiro can't do more than notice it. Another chill has come – different from the weather, different from the ache before, and his breath catches on the jagged edges of his ribs.

“ – Shiro?”

_A hand pressed against the window, drawing shapes into the frost. Memorizing the steps of a dance and how low to bow until it's written into his muscles. Running after someone in the spring sunshine, he has to catch up, he has to get there in time –_

His head is spinning. When – ? Pain lances up his jaw; it is clenched tight enough that he feels something pop in the muscle below his ear. There is a hand on him, hot enough to burn and Shiro flinches away from it even when every part of him begs for that single, grounding point of contact. But it draws away at his reaction and Shiro is left by himself with just the way his core won't stop trembling, the way he's wrapped his arm around his stomach without realizing it.

“ _Shiro_ .” Adam, that's Adam. Shiro knows Adam's voice, even if he doesn't know the emotion lacing through it, hasn't heard it before. ( _Fraught, desperate, icy with fear_ , no, he'd heard it once – somewhere and some _when_ –)

It's all bits and pieces, the frayed edges of ribbons, melting dreams, ghosts that cannot form a shape. But it's _something_ and even though he is halfway to doubled over and chilled through, Shiro laughs. Adam makes a noise; Shiro feels him moving closer but he does not touch him again. Fear and longing and gratitude burst like a firework inside of him.

“I remembered it,” he breathes, words fogging against his lips now that the sun has disappeared entirely and the moon does not give off enough heat. “I – ” Then he straightens abruptly, digging in his pocket to find a few bills that he shoves into Adam's hand. “It's time, let's go. Here, there's a train in the morning. I worked a few extra shifts – it's not that much, but together –”

“Shiro –”

“We can leave whenever's earliest. The fares are lower then, right?”

“ _Shiro_.”

Adam shoves the money back into Shiro's hand and in that moment where he doesn't understand what's happening, betrayal burns through Shiro like fire melting the chill in his bones. His glare comes easier than breathing.

“ _No_ – ”

“I can't help you,” Adam says, like it's ripped out of him.

“– What?”

“It's not enough. I thought by now we'd have made fare, but the prices keep going up and – ”

“I don't want your money.” Shiro pushes back, but Adam is insistent.

“It's your money – ”

“It's _ours_. We're in this together – I _trusted you_.”

When Shiro looks up, Adam's face is caught halfway between a scowl and a genuine hurt, all of it failing to be glossed over by careful, distant neutrality. Shiro is burning; Shiro is aching. This was their chance – they are in this together but it, too, has become something else just slipping through his fingers.

But it's slipping through Adam's fingers too.

No. This _is_ their chance.

“– But not enough. Hold out your hand.”

It takes Adam at least ten full seconds to reply to that. “ – What?”

“Just _do it_. Stubborn.”

“... You're one to talk.” But he does, and Shiro fights the wave of dread and affection. With shaking fingers that he violently forces still, he reaches into the pocket inside of his jacket, sewn nearly shut, and draws out what's within. Before he can question himself, he places it firmly in Adam's palm and steps back.

The single diamond sparkles in the moonlight and the lamplight. Adam stares at it.

“You – ” He fumbles, more unguarded than Shiro can remember seeing him, even when dealing with the thrall of Shiro's resurfacing memories. His hesitation and disbelief are knitted into the fabric of how he carries himself. “This whole time – you had this _the whole time_?”

But this, too, is familiar – Adam forgetting his tact and Shiro rising to meet that challenge with his own temper. From a distance, it'd be amusing to think about. Now, though, all he does is scowl. “It was _all I had_.”

“And what if I just – took this. Ran off. You'd never see me again.”

They meet each others' gaze, now standing upright, unyielding. Plainly, Shiro says: “I don't think you will.”

In tandem, they breathe. Then it's all motion as Adam closes the distance between them in a single step and unabashedly throws his arms around Shiro's middle, squeezing tight enough to lift him with the embrace. His noise of euphoria echoes against the stones of the buildings and the street.

“There you are! They raided the palace!” Sam's voice cuts through everything, a cold reality that slams its fist on this all encompassing syzygy. Adam turns first and Shiro is right behind him as soon as he gets his feet under him, breathing quick and heart racing in his throat, unable to feel anything but the rush of joy – the rush of what is to come, underscored by the way his sides and his back burn with the imprint of Adam's now-absent arms.

Sam, though, is frantic. “We're done for – the MPs will be back by dawn. They'll find everything –”

And then Sam is bewildered, instead, because Adam holds out the diamond in his hand. “ – Oh my _god_.”

“Shiro had it this whole time!”

“I didn't trust either of you yet!”

“How could I blame you for that?” Exuberance creeps into Sam's tone, as if he can hardly allow himself to believe what's happening. What they have. What it _means_.

Adam takes the reins. He presses the diamond into Sam's hand and curls Sam's fingers over it. “We need exit papers. This'll be more than enough.”

“Barely, but yes. _Yes_ it will. I'll take care of it. We're – ” He makes a choking noise, and Shiro moves beside him, one hand on Sam's elbow in concern even though he can't shake the grin that's parted his lips. Sam smiles back at him. “We're getting out! First thing in the morning.”

Beside him, Adam is close enough that he can feel his warmth, and Shiro doesn't quell the joy that erupts in his voice. “We're going to _Arus_.”

* * *

_Please stand by. The train to Arus by way of Liléne will board on track four_. _Arus by Liléne on track four_.

Dawn is only creeping up over the horizon, but already the station is starting to fill. Smoke and morning dew cling to the tracks and collect on the glass panels around the station house, curling in pearly, billowing stacks up to the slowly illuminating sky. The fences all along here are wrought iron and preserved, standing strong despite their delicate construction. Adam cannot remember seeing so many people properly dressed in – well, it doesn't bear thinking of how long it's been. But what he's never felt is so conspicuous. In the city, everyone moved through their days in varying states of raggedness, patching what they had to only when the winter grew too bitter.

But now, Adam watches a young couple pass by in crisply fitted jackets, white and deep burgundy, brandished with old silver fixings. Not new, but up-kept as well they could be in nine years without aristocracy. Somewhere, a child makes a noise of discontent and Adam sees, from the corner of his eye, as their mother bends down to pick them up. As soon as the child is lifted, their fussing quiets and they fall back asleep against their mother's shoulder, both of them wrapped in layers of wool, worn but clean.

He looks away.

“Alright,” Sam says, pressing a visa into Adam's hands. It appears Shiro has already gotten his, as he moves from idly glancing at it to tucking it under his arm. “If they ask, we are members of the Lesnier Theatre Company, departing early for our next appointment in Arus.”

The visa looks much the same as everyone else's, though Adam would like to see another to compare. Watermarks and signatures have been getting smaller and more finicky the tighter security gets at the border. But then, they're here, now, and running out of time. Legitimate papers or otherwise, this is the only chance they have. Adam tries to settle comfortably into that knowledge – and when he can't, and his skin still crawls and his heart still races in his throat – he tells himself that at least the nerves will keep him alert.

Nerves, _and_.

“So how long will the trip take?” Shiro doesn't seem as if he's directing the question at either of them in particular. Instead of leafing through his visa he's glancing around the station. The rising sun illuminates the line of his cheekbones, gives his lips a rosy flush and glitters against his nose. Adam watches him, long and silent, then looks down at his papers.

“Three days. We have a stopover right after we cross the border.”

Shiro draws in a breath, and Adam sneaks another peek. He's looking at that middle distance again, but not so far away that Adam couldn't reach him. No, now there's less of a haunted cast to his gaze and more of a –

Adam might call it happiness, if he were more foolish.

Between them, they've managed to fit everything they have in a suitcase each, and Adam watches uneasily as most of the other will-be passengers carry at least two apiece. It could be the exhilaration of achieving something that for so long hung before him like a distant star, but every noise catches his attention. Tension ripples down his back – and then he nearly jumps when there's a hand on his elbow.

“Hey,” Shiro says, his voice low and warmer than the barely-spring morning. Adam catches a flash of a smile at his lips, watches it long after it disappears. “D'you think the hot water will last for all of us when we get to the hotel?”

It's such a silly thought that Adam is huffing a laugh before he can help himself, and before he can realize helplessly that he's allowed Shiro the distraction he'd been aiming for. Slick bastard.

“As long as you don't hog all of it,” Adam says simply, taking a step away – mostly to hide his own grin at the predictable, indignant noise that Shiro makes in the back of his throat.

“ _Hey_ – ”

“It's _you_.”

The voice is new and unexpected and in his alarm, Adam doesn't catch its reverent tone. He's too busy reeling through shock and self directed frustration – _he needs to be watching out, he needs to be ready to head off disaster before it can start, he needs to keep them safe_ –

There is a man between them and Sam who is, decidedly, not wearing the uniform of the military, nor does he carry himself with their clinical precision. But he does stand tall and proud, and Adam cannot tell if he is taller than all of them, not with how his presence takes on a life of his own. – Then with a fell swoop he is gone, down on one knee before Adam can track him, reaching out for –

His stomach does a somersault, the world slowing to a crystalline, freezing stop when the man silently takes Shiro hand in his own, presses his forehead against the back of it, then stands and touches over his own heart before leaving them and continuing on his path. Shiro is transfixed, first on the spot the man abandoned, then on his retreating back.

It's only when Adam notices the fine whisper of a tremble in Shiro's lost, hanging hand that the world rocks itself back into motion and Adam surges toward him in two quick steps. He's not thinking about it when he takes Shiro's hand in his own, nor when they both look down at their clasped hands as if surprised by it – nor when he pulls Shiro's whole arm close to his side and waits for his breath to slow so it aligns with his own.

Even after he finally lets go, looking pointedly away, Adam doesn't dwell on what possessed him. He motions for the three of them to move to the platform, Sam falling into pace on his other side.

“Count Ellison,” he murmurs as if he, too, is a little dazed. “I met him, once. Only in passing. A true intellectual at court, always with an eye on the kind of innovation that we could bring to the Empire.”

Adam listens, a little, but hushes him by the end, not daring to look Shiro's way but acutely aware of his presence at his right side all the same.

“Let's just make sure we're not late,” Adam says.

It is only when the train pulls in and he looks over at the city beyond the station, brighter under the steadily rising sun, that he gives himself just a moment to think on the things he can't. The plummeting in his stomach at the look on Shiro's face – out of sorts, ghostly, reverent and inexplicably mournful. The way he knows that the rosy, flush smile that finally meets his eyes won't be there now. The way the city – the Republic, the Empire – will be here long after he has left, and the knowledge that he won't ever see this again, not the crumbling buildings and the cluttered back alleys, not Mrs. Bhasin's tried smile or the remnants of the Obsidian Palace or the canal sparkling at sunset. All things that he cannot dwell on as soon as they board their train, a relief and grief all tangled together.

Shiro is beside him. Adam still can't meet his gaze, but he does look at Shiro's hand, and he does ghost his fingers against the back of it.

* * *

“There _is_ no more first class,” Adam tells Sam as they settle into their compartment as comfortably as they can. It's not very easy, given its small size, but it's still more brightly furnished than the palace had been and Adam does press his palm against the threadbare but still soft upholstery of the seat.

“I know, I know.” Sam's voice always manages to sound so pleasant in his nostalgia, as if the past isn't eating him alive, and sometimes Adam wonders how he manages it. “But _still_ , oh it was _so_ nice. Saying hello to everyone, stretching out on the softest velvet, watching the world go by from windows that were so clean you'd swear they weren't there at all.”

“Did you travel a lot?” Shiro asks, stowing his bag on the overhead rack before sitting heavily next to Adam.

“Not terribly much, and usually not in such luxury. Just the few times – _ah_. Lovely.”

They're all in, so Adam reaches across Shiro to tug the compartment door closed, choosing to focus more on the conversation between the others than note how close they all are to each other, and how he can feel the even pattern of Shiro's breathing from where he sits.

It helps that Shiro is also focused on the conversation, leaning in, one eyebrow arched – worlds different than he had been after the run-in on the platform. There's life back in him.

“Was it on official business for the Empire?”

“Of course! Much of the construction in the Empire was done in collaboration with Arusia and Altea, you know. There was one summer when we traveled back and forth to Arus three times just to get the plans exactly right for their majesties.”

“We?”

Adam stills. He's got his head angled down at his visa but he can still see Sam on the seat across from them when he glances up, so he sees the way his expression shifts. The vibrancy of his nostalgia wilts a little, but he still doesn't look consumed with it. There's sadness there, like a falling shadow, but he's soft with it. He _lives_ with it, breathes with it, doesn't break with it, and Adam watches it with a potent cocktail of envy and empathy.

“ _We_. Let me tell you a secret, now that we're truly on our way.” It's only the three of them in the compartment, but Sam leans in anyway and Shiro follows suit, features openly set and unbeguiling, and there's something so easy and – and sweet about it that Adam's lips flicker in a grin.

“We have a stop to make before you're introduced to his highness,” Sam murmurs. Shiro cants his head to the side, entirely bereft of the suspicion that Adam used to see clinging to him as tangible as his well worn jacket.

“Where?”

“We're going to see my family, first.”

Adam has heard it before, only once or twice and in so few words, but it still hits him square in the gut. It seems like it lands the same way for Shiro. Adam feels him tense, then lean further in. Pure, unadulterated wonder crosses his face like a rising dawn, and Adam loses his breath for a moment in another way entirely.

“– You have a _family_?” It's like touching an open flame, listening to the way Shiro's voice folds so tenderly around the word _family_. “They're – in Arus?”

“They managed to get out during the siege,” Sam replies, his own voice lapsing further into warmth. Adam wonders if it's Shiro who has that effect, or if he'd always had the capacity for such softness even when talking over memories that must have been so – painful. “I'm grateful they did, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss them every single day.”

“Why did – _oh_ , no, I'm sorry. I don't mean to pry.”

“No, no, it's quite alright.” The lines at the corners of Sam's eyes shift when he smiles. “We were there, that night. At the summer palace.”

“For the party,” Shiro murmurs, a perfunctory echo. Sam nods.

“That's right. None of us knew it would – you never know when these kinds of things will happen. My children were scattered in the crowd when the first shots came. I searched for them everywhere, but my wife and I were nearly crushed by the crowd as they fled. _But_.”

Sam moves to press his hand against Shiro's knee, and that's when Adam notices how drawn Shiro's expression has become. Emotions slip so easily across his face when he's not paying attention – joy, longing, bitterness, and now a horrified compassion that burns enough to hurt Adam when he stares too long. It settles a little at Sam's touch.

“As soon as we found ourselves on the front lawn, there they were. They'd come out of some hidden passage in the palace. The crown prince himself led them to safety.”

Adam knows that to be true. He is well aware of how things played out, and why. But the implication sits amongst the three of them, silent yet undeniable, and impossible to ignore. Shiro shifts a little; Adam cannot imagine what the weight of that statement must feel like: the unspoken demand to step into the role of a prince, a savior.

And then Shiro leans more forward, takes Sam's hand into his own, and Adam stares openly at the change in his expression. Solid, unshakeable, shining with belief and conviction and achingly tender care.

“I'm so glad we're on our way,” he says, his lips picking up at the corner. “I only wish I'd known sooner. Perhaps I could have parted with our payment earlier than this.”

Then Sam lets a rolling laugh rumble in the back of his throat, pulling Shiro down so he can fluff his fingers through his hair. “I have no regrets, my boy. I don't want you having any either.”

Shiro's laugh is more of a cut off snort bleeding into a catching chuckle, entirely undignified and full of life, and the spell that held Adam's attention dissolves.

* * *

Eventually, Sam leaves to walk down the car and stretch his legs, and Adam slips out to see about food. Both seem a little risky, but so does everything else and Shiro nods to them both. He doesn't stay in the compartment out of fear; it's just so warm and private and quiet, and the light spilling in from the window is perfect for pulling out the journal he managed to grab in their mad dash out of the palace and flip it open.

None of the people in the pictures are smiling, not even the infants. He's not surprised. They're obviously carefully staged, stiff and regal. A hundred times over, he's delicately traced the outline of the Summer Palace. Even cast in black and white, the photograph still beckons him to imagine as it would have been: glittering in the sunlight bouncing off the arched glass windows and reflecting up from the sea just behind it. Wind would pick up against the surf, drumming up little waves to dance at its surface capped in white and giving off seaspray.

When he closes his eyes he tries, again, to feel it: the sting of salt, the smell of the shallow shore bottoming out to a vast ocean, the feel of sand, the heat of the summer. The sensation of feeling danger closing in around himself on all sides and still searching the crowd for the children of some important guest, in order to pull them to safety at the risk of himself. It’s not a curb that Shiro can neatly step up onto. He can still remember the warmth that wrapped around him, palpably rolling off Sam’s nostalgia in waves, but it crashes discordantly against the image of this young prince: beloved, respected, upstanding. Enough to broker the affection of a Count who survived the war. Enough to win Sam’s gratitude when it must ache, physically, to be apart of his family — his family, he has a _family_. That Crown Prince Takashi Shirogane saved. 

Shiro looks at the page in front of him, looks at his hand, and buries the implications of what all that means (the person that prince must have been, the role of a teenager that now looms so large in front of him that Shiro doubts he could ever fill it) and buries it. Moves on to trying to create whatever world he’s capable of imagining. 

He tries to hear the voices that should have filled the place, the voices of a mother and a father and a grandmother, the voice of a little brother.

That's what catches him every time he tries to sink into memories that don't want to come back. ( _That don't exist_ , he never fails to correct himself. He's not sure which one he believes more, or which one is safer.) The younger prince's face fills so many pages of the journal and Shiro has read over each page a hundred times, at least, never knowing if the eddy of ghostly something that is kicked up by every word and picture is real or imagined. Frustration swoops down into recognition and bewilderment and hope sweet enough to choke him. Shiro moves past the summer palace to the portraits of the family, growing with children, posing with counts and countesses that he still only knows by memorized name, and he uses the silence of their compartment to chase after the edges of his dreams.

None have ever resolved into something real, not until his time with Sam and Adam. Not until that night on the overpass, watching the sun sink behind the horizon and illuminate their dance in its dying breaths. What he can feel more than the conjured image of sea breezes is the sensation of Adam's hand in Shiro's own, burning hot against the frost rolling down his spine as he sings into existence something he'd never heard before but knows, more than anything, is true. _Our lullaby_ , the tiny voice had yelled, echoing through Shiro's mind, and guilt still bites like bile that he couldn't follow it any farther, form a name and a face and a person out of the single, stark clue he'd been given.

But now that he's alone, this time without the loneliness and danger, Shiro allows himself to wonder. That's what Sam had said, right? Half a year ago – _there's no harm in trying_. It had felt self indulgent and counterintuitive at the time, but then he'd gotten his first memory that he'd known, instantly, was a memory at all and it was enough to tell him that what they're doing – it's _important_.

Except it's not only that one triumph. It's Sam's faded-out geniality and Adam's crisp surety that come to him when doubt wants to take him apart. Shiro remembers their voices, too, as he tries to conjure the image of what it would be like to have a little brother.

Someone always there. How _childish_ , but it's still the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks about what he might feel, if he _were_ the lost prince and this Prince Keith was his family. That's something he knows about little brothers – wanting to be around, wanting to be a part of things. He's seen it often enough in passing (his gaze lingering at little families clustered against the winds of winter with more longing than is truly acceptable), and he can picture it: the two princes (the two of them, he supposes) standing side by side for one of the portraits. Holding the brother's hand, leading him somewhere when the crowds at court grew too thick. Maybe teaching him something, even if Shiro could hardly imagine what he'd know that anyone else wouldn't, no matter how much younger. Maybe laughing together, or trying not to because it seems undignified for royalty to laugh openly when they can't even smile in their pictures.

Someone who might ask him questions. Would they grow annoyed with each other? Hate each other, the way children sometimes do? Shiro can't fathom that; it sits wrong in the pit of his stomach. So he moves on to thinking about other things. Risking the hope that his brother would be someone who wants him around – who looks for him, who likes him. Shiro thinks about picking up his brother when he grew tired, or – _running after someone in the sunshine, he has to catch up_ –

Every time the images come they're always as fragmented as dreams that shatter with waking. But he's felt this before. _Our lullaby_ , and the need to catch up with someone – to _find_ someone. It's so all encompassing and desperate and nerve wracking and warm that he can't say the name of the feeling even though it comes to him, undeniable in its existence. This feeling, he _knows_ what he should call this feeling –

There's a knock at the door and Shiro doesn't startle but he does open his eyes and straighten his spine. And he's not disappointed when he sees that Adam has come back, even if his chase after the phantoms he lives with has been temporarily halted.

“Slacking off?” Adam asks, but his voice is alive with a teasing flush. Shiro huffs a laugh.

“Of course. This compartment is too warm, I couldn't resist.”

“ _Apologies_ , your highness.” Adam waves his arm in an exaggerated flourish, sitting down on the seat across from Shiro, so close their knees only _just_ don't touch. It's still palpable. Gesturing with his sharply defined chin, Adam adds, “I'm pretty sure you've memorized that thing by now.”

Shiro glances down at the journal instinctively. “Hey, I'm not about to leave important things to chance. Where would we be without hard work?”

“Mm. Fair enough. Still –”

The chance to hear what Adam would say when his tone shifts from pragmatic to gentle never comes. He's cut off by a crashing sound, loud and percussive and not echoing at all. Shiro has no idea what it is, but his body must – it locks entirely, heart slamming into his throat, fingers rigid against his palms, eyes blown wide but unseeing. Blood rushes in his ears, none of it making sense, but all of it clearly yelling that _this isn't safe, they have to go, they have to run_ –

Their knees are knocking together now, but Shiro can't feel anything about it. Nor about the way Adam's expression has morphed into a mask of dire concern, and he's calling his name as if Shiro has gone somewhere far away and hidden. There's a reflex to answer, one he cannot oblige, not when his pulse is threatening to race right out of his mouth.

Adam is asking a question and holding his hands up. Shiro can't make sense of it. But he is instantly wrapped up in the memory of Adam taking his hand at the platform, not commenting on it, not shielding him – just. Together. Just a moment of togetherness that quelled the shaken bewilderment of their strange run in with that Count. Shiro leans forward and curls his fingers around Adam's palms, and maybe that was the answer Adam was looking for anyway because the second they meet Adam seems to be more himself: sure and calculating and so, so brilliant. He's ready when the door opens again and Sam comes in. Shiro should hate himself for not being on top of things, but he can't find the will when Adam's hand is in his own and it tells him that they will be alright.

“They're looking for fakes,” Sam says as he grabs two of the bags off the overhead shelf. Adam stands to take the other, one hand still in Shiro's. “We have to go.”

“ _Go_? The train's moving –”

“Ellison was just _shot_ –”

“We _know_. We heard. But how can we –”

“Are you alright...?”

Sam's last question is directed to Shiro, managing to cut through the mummified layers of terror and nausea that have assaulted him and cocooned around him. He stares. Adam squeezes his hand, but he doesn't answer for him.

( _They're here for him and they're suffering_ – _but there's no time for weakness, they have to_ –)

“– Go.” Shiro's voice scrapes his throat raw. He doesn't dwell on it. “We have to go.”

“Shiro –” Adam's protest is weak, and Shiro knows instinctively that he can take the lead. That he should.

“Where the car joins the next – we have to jump before they stop the whole train.”

“– _Are you serious_.”

“He's right.” And thank goodness for Sam and his experience and willingness to do what needs to be done. Without looking back at their compartment and its warm light and soft upholstery, Shiro takes the charge and tugs Adam along with him. They slip out their compartment door – the voices at the front of the car aren't far enough away for them to be safe for more than a minute.

It's a straight shot to the back of the car. Shiro keeps his hand firmly linked with Adam's, weathering the rocking of the train with unquestioned ease. Shiro hears Sam stumble behind them but they're three yards, two, one – _right_ at the door, and it's only then that Shiro lets go to fumble with the latch, tearing it free from its hold as a door echoes when it closes on its hinges at the front of the car. The back door is heavy, and it takes Adam and Shiro both to shove it open.

“Go!” Shiro yells, entertaining a little updraft of gratitude when Sam doesn't hesitate to go through. He urges Adam next, who's a little more cautious with their mad dash, and just manages to not get his hand caught in the door himself when he slips out last and lets it close behind them.

The train's whistle shrieks; they're already slowing around a turn, and now they're stopping altogether.

Despite the whole thing losing speed by the second, the snowy ground below is whipping by faster than Shiro can keep up with. But he is desperately aware of Adam and Sam by his side, and some unknown instinct rises up through him and takes over, calculating their best bet and issuing the order without considering that it might be ignored.

“We're slowing down – if we jump off at a roll we should be alright. We need to head to the forest.”

Shiro feels Adam glance at the head of the train. “– It looks like they're going to stop after the next bridge.” Indeed, the snowy hills swan out into a breathtaking drop down to a river not a hundred feet in front of him. For a plummeting second, Shiro is dizzy with the thought of rolling off into a ravine, but his voice is firm when he replies.

“Good. They won't be able to find us so easily. Come on!”

They have a second, less than a second, before they need to go. That's when Shiro looks up at Sam – looks at Adam, locks eyes with him, both of them breathless and wild and running on grit alone –

Then they jump.

* * *

Reports come in every few hours for a week, then two. They weren't on the train when it stopped at the Doloron checkpoint, fifty miles from the Arusian border, and neither Commander Iverson nor Admiral Sanda could understand how three upstarts could disappear off a moving train. But there was enough to give them a radius, and direct orders from the Garrison, from the Admiral herself, were to start there and fan out in ever increasing circles until they hit the border.

Their three runaways don't make it easy.

For a week straight, Iverson had read each incoming report with a kind of dread that could not be satisfied either way – a sure sighting and he's clamping down on the fear and alarm that take over his bones, a complete miss and he's courting the anxiety of letting down his commanding officer and the leader of their country.

He does not allow himself to think of the day in the street, when he'd tried to help some suffering soul and thought that he might be doing real good for the Republic. He does not allow himself to think of the day in his office, starting down a transforming young man that came with an air of danger trailing behind him. All he does, instead, is chase down every rumor.

Watchful citizens report seeing them in Verwood, but a group of MPs deliver the same message, except twenty miles away in Holm. By bus, by bicycle, by foot, three rebellious citizens of the Republic with forged exit papers manage to circumvent every barricade and waiting, vigilant officer, winding back and forth in the last fifty miles between their country and the border in scattered arcs that elude all best efforts made to take them in.

Until a month later when they are no longer skirting the border. They cross over it.

After, the inevitable call comes on a private line.

“This is going to end.” The Admiral's voice hints at roughness, but it is still no less sure and commanding than it ever has been. Iverson digs a hand against his uniform jacket.

“If you're suggesting that we take a battalion across the border of an ally country –”

“What I'm suggesting is that this _ends_ . What I'm suggesting is that you _end this_.”

“– Admiral –”

“That is _who I am_ , Commander.” Winter has very little on Admiral Sanda's voice when she is sure of something. Whenever this country is at stake. “This is your Admiral telling you that this needs to stop. As quickly as possible. Do you understand?”

Understanding is not the problem. So all he can say is, “– Yes. I do.”

The line goes dead. Iverson stares at the phone in his hand, glowing dully under the institutional lighting, then slowly drops his head until he's pressing it against his other palm.

* * *

The driver had let them off at the base of the hill, and it looks insurmountable from where they're standing. But of course it isn't; years of traversing the Republic hadn't done much for the weeks they've spent traversing the wilds between themselves and the border, but Shiro has not once complained of the ache in his thighs and he doesn't plan on starting now. Not when they've crossed, not when they're only one more hill away from the foot of the capital city of Arus, not if he can ever help it.

Bracing one hand against the curve of his back, he looks up. It is nighttime now, but at the very, very top he thinks he can see some glittering glow, as if it is illuminated from behind from lights beyond. And honestly, knowing what he's learned about Arus, it probably is.

“We are in for a _treat_ ,” Sam says, sitting heavily on his suitcase. Without thinking, Shiro reaches out to gently brush his hand against his shoulder. It earns him a smile a soft pat on the back of his palm. “And I'll be fine. _We'll_ be fine. The hotels are stunning – the softest sheets, hot running water. Though I have a suspicion that we'll be far too busy with the city to even _think_ about sleeping.”

“Oh?” Shiro's questioning tone is short but leading, and if Sam catches on he doesn't say.

“ _Oh_ , yes. The last time I was here – well! I was far less grey, I'll tell you that.” He sweeps a wistful hand through his hair, as if by touch alone he can resurrect the color it once was. “No matter, no matter. It will be all done up in lights, full of music and art and wide rivers – you can sail on them for _pleasure_ , you know. Just around the city on a boat.”

“I don't know.” Adam stretches a little wandering up a few steps until he's more firmly on the hill itself. “It looks kind of like the Republic to me.”

His slyly teasing tone is contagious; it melts the hard knots in Shiro's muscles and lights a fuse on his own good humor. He leans back, idly taking the handle of his suitcase in hand. “I can't say I disagree. It looks like more forests from here.”

“ _Boys_.” Sam's voice is so scandalized that Shiro can't tell whether or not he's playing along. But his gestures are overdramatic enough to suggest that he is, languidly turning on his heel and pressing his hand against his heart. “You'll be the death of me, I swear.”

“If we haven't been by _now_...” The humor in Adam's voice has become a full on drawl, lilting and almost musical in its nuanced blitheness, and Shiro finds himself smiling at the sound of it with no reservation. It doesn't flicker when Adam looks his way; it melts warmer, and he is captured by the glow of Adam's eyes.

“Let's get a move on,” Sam says, affecting enough pride to elicit a laugh from both of them. “I need a glimpse of the city before I believe this is all real.”

He's off, and Adam's not that slow to follow him. But Shiro reaches out, brushing his fingers against the sleeve of his jacket until they are both paused, one hill away from Arus.

“I didn't doubt we'd get here,” Shiro says when Adam has half turned to him, then continues when their gazes meet again. “I didn't doubt you. – Thanks.”

Then there is silence between them much stiffer than Shiro was expecting. He wonders wildly if he's done something to shatter what they've built – a worry that feels unspeakably strange when it knocks into the part of him that has grown around Adam's dependability like a stubborn vine growing around that which has come into its path. Adam moves as if he's going to reciprocate the touch and Shiro reels with the possibility, then with the bewildering disappointment when Adam nods instead, smiling but stepping back.

“Sam's the real life saver,” he says, and it's not untrue but it leaves Shiro shivering and a little empty and little deliriously hopeful all the same. There's something between them, quiet and _just_ out of reach – “C'mon.”

Shiro plans to follow him – makes it halfway up the hill when he's seized with the need to put his suitcase down and lean against it. In the distance ahead of him Sam calls his name, then Adam, but he doesn't hear them coming back to get him. Good – that's good. He just needs –

It's frustrating, to need anything at all. To be so alone with his emotions when emotions are – dangerous. Impractical. _Selfish_ , though he doesn't know why he thinks so. It's not as if anyone's ever depended on him for much. Not until –

This far up, the cast of the lights is much stronger, and it dances like little scattered stars over his hand. Shiro watches them. It's so small, but it's so beautiful and his throat burns in a way it hasn't in – he doesn't remember. Maybe not since his first life, the one that he's been chasing. The one that might just be right here, waiting for him to crest the hill and see the city that has only been a name etched on a pendant hidden under his shirt for nine years.

Euphoria takes him. Awe takes him. Fear takes him.

He shivers once, then again and harder. His fingers curl desperately around the handle of his suitcase and he thinks he might just fall apart under the weight of what could be – what _is_ – waiting for him on the other side of all this. If he doesn't fumble it, if he doesn't shatter it, if he doesn't run headlong to meet it only to find that it, just like his dreams, will crumble and fade with the morning light.

 _No_. Shiro's grip tightens and with the force of something beyond himself he forces himself to still. The tremors quiet then die altogether, and in the privacy of the night sky and this last, vast expanse of the middle of nowhere, he lets his shaking lips pull into a wide grin.

By the time he's straightened up, he has swallowed back against the burning in his throat and leaves his straining, quivering nerves behind. Walking through the dappled, starlike light coruscating from the city, he falls back in line with Adam, and when he reaches the top and first sees the soaring tower like some living comet come to Earth, he lets the sight of it fill his lungs and bleed gold against his ribs.

Adam's hand finds his as they greet Arus. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to either post this when i finished the second half or december first hit - so! happy once upon a december! for maximum impact, imagine the first waltz scene scored to that dramatic version of edelweiss when maria runs out on the von trapps.
> 
> also, comment. (clap emoji, knife emoji.)
> 
> playlist: ( [xo](https://open.spotify.com/user/matsuokis/playlist/1M3WinGkwJ3CEmMD8JGSXe?si=Gaxe_6aOQZqMuCFoKvXq9Q) )
> 
> [@disasterganes](http://disasterganes.tumblr.com) on tumblr


	2. act two.

To absolutely no one's surprise, Sam is right. They have a difficult time making it to the hotel in the first place. As soon as they crest the hill, Arus is laid out below them mapped in a sea of lights and the siren call crescendos the closer they get. Not only for Sam, swept up in a wet-eyed, relief ridden nostalgia, or Shiro, painted with the glow of streetlights and staring in wonder at the press of bodies and pristine shop windows and growing flowers. As they cross the border into the capitol city, Adam himself draws up short, transfixed by the strings of lights strung across the lampposts, and the way the breeze is, somehow, warmer here, even though the snow has not let go of its death grip on the Republic's early spring.

“ _Boys_ , boys,” Sam says through what sounds like a suspiciously tight throat, pressing a hand against each of their elbows in turn. “Let's check in first, before there's no one at the concierge desk.”

A concierge desk – a _concierge_ , who has the courtesy to not linger on their threadbare jackets and minimal luggage. Who walks them through a lobby with a carpet more plush than Adam had seen in nine years and leads them to a room triple the size of the livable quarters they'd made out of the ruins of the palace. The sheets look so soft and white than neither Adam nor Shiro dare touch them. Instead, Adam watches Shiro delicately run his fingers against the rich, wooden vanity, the crystal glasses, the gauzy curtains, his own stomach twisting in on itself with feelings that he won't name.

 _Hot water_. Hot, running water from a shower in a bathroom that makes Adam feel very small. He lets Shiro take it over first, tries to fall into his toothless annoyance at how long Shiro takes, but finds he doesn't have the heart. Particularly when Shiro reemerges in a comically large robe, so freshly shiny he looks like he's bursting with life. They'd had water back – back in the Republic, but apparently splashing clean in freezing temperatures doesn't compare to this, not if Shiro's scrubbed-pink skin and the brilliant quality the white streaked through his bangs has taken on is any indication. Maybe Adam takes a little too long in admiring the – _happiness_ , that's what it is, so he might as well say it – the happiness painted across Shiro's expression because Shiro huffs a much fuller laugh than Adam is used to and tosses a towel that nails him directly in the head.

He doesn't mind it. Shiro is laughing and the towel is so much softer than he'd been expecting and the water is _warm_ and velvety against his skin when he finally gets in the shower. It's a deluge on the crown of his head, trailing tenderly through the locks of his hair, then whispering against the scars that twist up his back. A lingering ghost of tension rises as it always does at having them exposed, especially in this new environment, but warm water might be a panacea. It lulls him away from the flare of alarm until Adam feels the leaden knots that line his shoulders begin to release a little, one by one. Eventually he tips his head back, letting a few droplets pool at his forehead and drip down the curve of his nose.

The robes _are_ comically large and for a delirious second, Adam pictures never taking his off. Fluff and cotton trail at the hem all the way to the floor, and when he finally dares to sit on one of the beds, right next to Shiro, he bears Sam's ringing laughter with all the grace of a martyr.

“If only I had a _camera_ ,” he says, motioning to the pair that they must make, side by side in their matching robes that are swallowing them both whole.

Shiro ducks his head, flush but grinning. Adam chooses to reply, “It's not that funny.”

“No. It isn't.” Warmth infuses Sam's voice like honey and Adam believes him instantly. But that leaves him with the possibility of understanding another meaning in Sam's laughter and he'd rather not touch something so tender and honest.

It's almost a shame to change back into the clothes that they've worn through the backwoods of the Republic, but that would be admitting to wanting to be soft so Adam doesn't think about the stark difference between his familiar, hearty, worn out shirt and the smoothness of the robe.

It is – _nothing_ like Adam had expected. Even late at night, he can smell fresh bread, chocolate, coffee, the brassy heft of the river, the carefully aromatic rose bushes. He winds down the cobblestoned avenue that swans out from their hotel, marveling at the way each stone set along its way is whole and unbroken. Dark, manicured hedges line every street, lushly framing the big avenue and the branching boulevards that curl into the rest of the city. And there is _so much_ more with each block he passes. Every shop he comes across, with its shining windows and artfully arranged displays of clothing or bags or watches or pastries is like some fever laced dream. Lights dance across every glass surface; every time he moves his arm it greets a kaleidoscope of reflected prisms.

Sam's reasonable, measured approach only lasts until they leave the hotel behind and chance upon the main boulevard. Then he immediately shouts about pastries and tells them not to go far, that he'll be right back. Adam doesn't disguise the way his lips curl at the edges – he doesn't even _notice_ it. When Shiro points out some ensemble in a shop window that looks completely unwearable, all stitched up fuchsia and lime green with impossibly draped arms, Adam doesn't choke back the chuckle that buds up in the back of his throat.

“ _Oh_ , hey!”

And then Shiro is off, too – not too far, but that's not why Adam's heart races at the thought of losing sight of him. He breaks into a loping half-jog to keep up, and by the time he does Shiro has already thanked the person manning the cart he's just visited and has turned. In his hand, wrapped neatly with a silk ribbon, is a single, fresh looking, deep violet sprig of lavender.

“I don't think I ever remember seeing so much nature in my _life_ ,” Shiro says, rolling the thin stem in his fingers. Adam's pulse skips over its next beat at the vibrancy in his voice and he makes to say something – but Shiro has guided his hand up with his pinky finger and is pressing the lavender into his palm.

When he draws his next breath Adam curiously realizes he can't find it, nor his voice. He has to stumble into it, looking down at the flower between them, then back up. Along the way, he's lost the dependable, waxen mask he's always reached for like second nature. “For me?”

The shifting lights glimmering off the river and the store windows falls dappled and soft over Shiro's face. “Color suits you,” he says, as if it's just that easy.

Something in him instinctively mourns at the idea of a flower cut from its roots, but that is not a worry he wants (or can) entertain in this moment because it's already gone and in the next he's soaring – far above the city of Arus, anchored in place by the way Shiro's face is lit up from something more than streetlights, moonlight. Like he glows with his own, personal starlight and Adam is hanging in his orbit.

 _Silly_ he'd call it. _Sentimental_. _Dangerous_ , Sam would say, and Adam would argue that it was _impractical_ more than anything else. But now he lets his forefinger trail against the length of silk hanging from the end of the bow, and fixes his gaze on Shiro, saying nothing. In the seconds that pass Adam watches Shiro's expression melt from self possessed and euphoric to red-tinged, sheepish and so open that Adam aches to read everything that must be written there, the entire history that he cannot remember –

“We should find Sam,” Adam says suddenly, surprising himself and probably Shiro as well, judging by his startled look, but he's speaking too fast to understand why he's said in the first place. His body, it seems, is racing something ahead of his mind, and his pulse trembles with it when he lightly brushes his hand against the fabric at Shiro's wrist, then turns on his heel to lead them back the way they came.

Sam is not hard to find. They meet in the middle, and Adam is greeted with something else pressed into his hand: this time, pastry that smells like a full bakery even housed in its little paper slip. Sam reaches over to give Shiro the same, beaming in a way that Adam wants to catalogue for how novel it is.

“Eat up! We have a stop to make before we can do anything else.”

Adam plays with the edge of the paper bag, overwhelmed by the warmth it bleeds and the smell that wafts from it. But far more overwhelming is Shiro's confusion at his abruptness – his own confusion over the way he'd acted. So he decides to partake with the lesser – and is immediately overcome the moment the thing touches his lips. The flavor is an _explosion_ on his tongue, sweet and crisp and tangy and as different as it is nostalgic, and he stops short.

It's a mistake in more ways than one, because immediately Shiro is at his elbow, his occupied hand still reaching out to brace Adam. Even from his periphery, Adam can see the concern that flickers across the whole of how Shiro holds himself, radiating with worry now that he's allowed the city to strip him bare of whatever protections he's used to having up.

After a few beats of silence, his throat burning and his eyes burning, Adam finally dissolves into a laugh and says, “It's just – _really_ good.”

The weight of Sam's gaze is a physical thing, so Adam sees no reason not to try his best and ignore it. He doesn't need whatever softness it has – knowing or pitying or wistful or simply, howlingly sad. Drafting off a race between his heart and mind he can't name yet, he stands up straight, bites heartily into the pastry, and lets the sugar and chocolate and syrupy glaze light up his nerves all the way to bone.

“Alright!” He says, walking forward. “Where to next?”

Through practice, or genuine desire, Sam moves, too. “I'm cashing in a favor I've been sitting on since before the war.”

“Oh?” Prompts Shiro, falling in line on Sam's other side, falling silent as he waits on the answer. (And, of course, in the thrall of the pastry.)

“Yes indeed! I told you that I did some business here, right?”

Possibly rendered silent by the entrancing mix of sugar and butter and chocolate, Shiro only nods.

“One summer, I was here far longer than scheduled, and had enough time on my hands between meetings to take care of a few pet projects. Designs for new displays, as a favor to a few up and coming designers that wanted to branch into selling in the Empire. I always loved projects like that – the freedom to stretch my creative wings, as it were. Branch out from my usual fare. Making a few connections along the way. It's not too far, now.”

Adam is listening, but the more they pass through Arus' streets, the more it becomes impossible to ignore that they are alive with something more than just noise. The Republic was noisy – with the MPs and Garrison officers on every corner, hagglers and dealers lining every alley, trucks unmaintained and backfiring every hour. It could be the nature of it, the way Arus rings more with excitement than the eroding reality of daily routine. But then a young woman stumbles against his elbow and responds by blithely patting his arm, lips forming a twinkling _sorry, sorry!_ that breathes through a veil of unencumbered laughter before running to close the distance between herself and her friend a few paces ahead, and Adam realizes she is _unafraid_.

It has been nine years since he has known a world that is unafraid and his knees feel weak with the knowledge – both the cementing realization of where they are, and the fact that even though he has been taught that this whimsical lack of fear leads to destruction, he aches to touch it, surround himself with it, be a part of it. Even if only for a moment. To stay in this soft place listening to Sam's stories and be able to take Shiro's hand when there is no danger, no _reason_ to –

Then he's racing back to the present, once again outrunning that thing that he's too far ahead of himself to see clearly, or name.

“Ah, yes. Still here!” Sam has slowed their pace in front of a clothing store, mannequins artfully arranged in what _must_ be some cutting edge fashion, highlighted by the streetlights bouncing against the carefully crafted bay windows like they're being framed more prominently than all the other stores on the street have managed. Adam cants his head curiously to the side, but it's Shiro who puts the pieces together first.

“Is this – your design? The window?”

“You think it is?” Sam often affects warmth in his voice, but Adam hears a solidness in it now that speaks to newly refurbished pride. He tucks the memory of it away in his heart, where the sentimentality can't get him but he also won't forget it. “You're correct! Not just, though. Come on.”

“What – inside? But we're not –”

“Like I said,” Sam leans in closer to Shiro and Adam sees the conspiratorial wink he gives him, amused and familial. “I've done quite a few favors in my day.”

They are distinctly and strikingly out of place inside, in a way far more pronounced than they were outside. Adam cannot name half of the styles of clothing artfully arranged on display around the shop, could not begin to decipher the different kinds of fabrics on the hundreds of things on shelves and hanging off racks, all of them looking so delicately crafted that Adam is overcome with the sensation of fumbling with them and tearing a seam, even at a distance. 

“ _No_ , it cannot be — _Samuel?_ ” 

Adam is left to hover at the threshold with Shiro only a few steps away as Sam sweeps into the store, back straight and arms open wide. The woman that he embraces is as tall as him, her greying hair swept into an elegant updo, and she’s draped in a silk ensemble that radiates power and grace in its bold lines and billowing accents. The difference should have been night and day — they’ve showered (properly, warm water and perfumed soaps and all) but none of them had even been among the Republic’s best dressed or best kept, and nothing Adam has seen of Arus has made him believe that the Republic’s fashion could hold even a candle to it. 

But it’s not so jarring. They hug, briefly, and it’s full of a life that Adam is starting to see return to Sam in fits and starts each more pronounced than the last. 

“Simonne, it has been _too_ long. And I mean that very literally.” 

Her deep brown eyes glitter with familiarity and that same joie de vivre that Adam could not help but notice on every face passing by outside. “I told you that you are always welcome here! How many years has it been? It breaks my heart, Samuel!” 

“Ah, _well_. Travel hasn’t been the easiest thing of late.” 

“Of course, of course.” She threads an arm through Sam’s, and it’s friendly and open but Adam doesn’t hear the weight he’d expected at the mention of the war and its aftermath. As if she has floated right over it. It sits wrong in the pit of his stomach. “But it’s better late than never, no?” 

“Very true,” Sam concedes, turning them both around to extend a hand at Adam and Shiro. “Though I do come begging a favor, Simonne.” 

“Oh!” Surprise flickers across Simonne’s sharp gaze, though if Adam had to guess he’d say that she has her eye more on their wardrobe than them. “Say no more! You must _all_ let me fit you!” 

_Let_ is a very mild word; before he can properly understand what’s happening, much less object to it, Adam is being swept towards one of the changing rooms in the back by a shop assistant that has, seemingly, come out of absolutely nowhere. A pile of fabrics, shirts, jackets, pants, are piled into his arms and the breakneck speed only gets faster. 

At least two different assistants or designers or employees take his measurements with deft authority, jotting down numbers and asking him questions he certainly doesn’t have an answer to (“Do you prefer silk or velvet accents?” “How much breathability are you going to require?” “No, no linen at this time of year. You never know if the temperature will drop.”) Simonne herself pops in a few times — the first after his measurements are taken, the second after he’s gone through at least three outfits that were summarily rejected by the learned professionals in the changing room. 

“No, no,” she says both times, “You don’t need anything so dark and brooding. Let’s try to complement with something lighter.” 

He’s just about to ask for a say in this (or, at least, a moment to breathe) when he’s bossed into another ensemble — then he doesn’t have to ask for anything because the motion stops and he finally gets a chance to simply look at himself in the mirror. 

It takes him a moment to recognize himself, catching on a breath when he does. The face looking back at him is — _full_. Whether it’s the warm overhead lighting or the soft cream color of the sweater on him that sits perfectly against his shoulders, or something else that he can’t name, but he doesn’t see the shadows in his face he’s come to expect in the glimpses of his reflection he can’t avoid. Under the lower bridge of his glasses by his eyes there’s no violet pooling; the hollows of his cheeks don’t stand out so prominently. The rich dark of his skin looks richer for it, and even his hair has finally decided to behave despite the fact that he felt no one touch it. It’s so entirely different that he suddenly, inexplicably, feels self conscious of the worn boots he’s still wearing, no matter how grateful he has always been for their sturdiness. 

A full body startle rolls down his spine when Simonne’s hand finds his shoulder. 

“There, now,” she says, almost in that tone that Sam sometimes has. “A few last touches.” She hands him a pair of shoes — sturdy brown leather — and drapes a thick, grey wool overcoat over his shoulders. “Voilá. A little magic, no?” 

“I —” Adam draws a deep breath that fills his lungs up the entire way, then nods. “Thank you.” 

“It is my joy,” Simonne says simply, and Adam can see that. He might not understand her quick precision, the way she’d sidestepped the war, but this he understands. Pride, enthusiasm, true _joy_. Open and plain in her gaze, the set of her posture. His lips quirk up in a half smile. 

Then she’s leaving. “Finish. I must make sure everyone is dressed to perfection.” 

Adam emerges from his room later, after he wistfully replaces his old boots with his shoes, and has all of his old clothes packed neatly in a tote for him. Thanking the assistants (he is only able to catch one of their names, Marie), he makes his way back to the open space outside the changing rooms. Sam is already there, and Adam’s reluctant smile grows more comfortable on his lips. He didn’t know Sam before the war, so he can’t speak to what he’d worn, but Adam would bet _something_ on it looking a little like this — the stately dark green jacket embroidered with silver accents, the crisp shirt underneath, and he has stepped into the role he’s talked about in snatches over the years: an honored guest of the court, a visionary engineer. When Sam catches sight of him, his own smile deepens and Adam glances down for a moment. 

“Well now,” he says, low and warm, “How’s this for a change of pace?” 

“It’s not bad,” Adam replies. Sam laughs. 

Then he calls, “Simonne, my dear, I’m sure we’re already here well past your normal hours — ” 

“Samuel!” From inside the last changing room, Simonne’s voice is scandalized. “You bring me princes to dress, and you want me to rush? Art takes _time_ , my friend. And that is what we’re making.” 

“My apologies.” There is good natured humor all twined up in Sam’s voice, and Adam’s heart throbs with gratitude. Their meeting years ago had been so much a coincidence — built around Adam’s anger, his howling grief in the wake of his father’s passing, that if he were sillier, dreamier, less aware of the danger of these kinds of things he’d call it serendipitous. Fated. A miracle. 

But that’s unsafe, and impractical, so he only allows himself the gratitude that they are both here, now. Warm and taken care of. Together. 

“Alright!” Simonne’s voice rings with triumph and the curtain parts. “I’ve done what I can with the time you’ve given me.” 

“And I really appreciate it,” Shiro says warmly, pushing through fabric to join them. 

Adam cannot stop himself from staring. 

From the moment he came to them, Shiro had chosen to drape himself in his large, formless overcoat. Sometimes he’d stand tall enough to distract from the way his few possessions were irreversibly threadbare, but _now_. The jacket he wears is fitted a little at the waist, made in a wool so deeply navy blue that it rivals midnight over the river, silver thread and buttons standing out like stars against it. His right sleeve is artfully buttoned so that it hangs more unobtrusively, leading Adam’s gaze to the crisp white of the shirt underneath poking through at the top, the way all of it highlights the panes of Shiro’s face, the straightness of his posture, the demure, solid smile at his lips. 

It takes him longer to notice that Shiro has his own gaze locked on him, too. 

He doesn’t know what to do with it; he feels the race closing in on its inevitable end. 

“Simonne,” Sam says, striding forward to take her hand in his. “Miracle worker. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.” 

“You already have, Samuel,” she says, gesturing at her store. “Business took off after your help, and I never looked back. You’ll accept these and the rest of my gifts with a smile, do you understand me?” 

“Yes, of course.” They kiss each others’ cheeks and between the three of them wind up carrying out at least four bags full of clothes, old and new. Adam shifts his restlessly as they leave, the twinkling bell on the door sounding, somehow, very heavy. 

“We really should sleep, you know,” Sam says, taking the lead. “We have a _lot_ to get to.” 

They do. They have the whole reason that they’re here. 

Adam stills when he feels the weight of Shiro’s hand on his elbow (and he knows that hand — he’d know it in a crowd of thousands—) 

“Hey,” Shiro says in that voice that Adam has memorized. Adam gathers himself, turns to meet Shiro’s gaze head on. 

What a mistake, after so many of them. 

Shiro’s expression is more open than Adam has ever known, curious and hopeful and painted in so much familiar affection that Adam burns all the way through. He lets go only to gesture at himself, and it’s a little silly but also more than a little earnest, as if he really _wants_ Adam’s opinion. “Well?” 

It might be a coincidence, or it might not be. But Adam _knows_ those colors that make up Shiro’s ensemble; he’d seen them nearly every day of his childhood, adorning the palace, decorating the Empire’s streets and businesses. And even if it he didn’t, even if Shiro had been put in anything else, he can’t unknow what he sees in him: the poise, the confidence, the tender kindness that looms so intimidatingly for how it hasn’t been burned out of him over the years. More commanding than the Garrison could ever dream to be, more self possessed than it looks like Shiro realizes. Like someone who could sit in that carriage at fifteen for hours, in the sun, and still greet every person with a smile that looked as if it were meant just for them. 

Like someone who can speak to the last remnants of royalty and convince them, beyond a doubt, that he belongs with them. 

There’s no question anymore — Shiro will pull this off. And they will each go their way. 

_Well?_

The race is over. Adam understands, now, the danger that his mind sensed and his heart ignored. His grin is tight and sharp and doesn’t reach his eyes as he nods once before he looks away. 

“I suppose we couldn’t have doubted that you clean up nice.” 

Before Shiro can say something (take offense, voice his confusion, return the compliment better and more genuinely because of course he would, because he’s _Shiro_ ) Adam forges on ahead, alone. 

Pretend princes can’t fall for commoners. That’s not how it works. 

* * *

It must be Spring; Coran has opened all the windows of the estate. 

That doesn’t mean it’s not still cold. Even without the snow and the frost, a cool breeze stirs in half the hallways, enough that Keith has not shed the soft jacket he keeps himself wrapped in from the first frost to the last thaw. He can’t argue that it makes things less stuffy, but he still has to fight the urge that he would have given into years ago, to ignore Coran entirely and slam every window closed. 

Instead, he pulls his jacket closer to himself and makes his way to the dining room. 

“Good morning!” 

Keith is not surprised that Coran’s voice is the first thing he hears when he reaches his destination and opens the door. He takes a moment to blink against the sunlight that floods the room, stretching his neck a little before he sits down. 

Allura is already there. Keith nods at her and says, “Morning,” to both of them, voice low. 

Yes, definitely Spring. With the sun higher in the sky now and a few birdsongs caught on the breeze and trailing through the open window, there is no mistaking the way the season always comes to Arus. It resolves in bits and pieces — a chilly wind and a warm sun, the return of songbirds and a few, scattered blooming flowers poking through the lingering patches of frost. He can see a glimpse of them now, some of the yellow ones peeking up from the window-boxes that hang off of every sill in the estate. Even the middle of the table finally hosts a clear vase filled with a bouquet of newly blossomed Juniberry flowers. 

It takes him a while of existing in the ambient silence for Keith to realize that Allura has not said anything yet. He risks a glance up at her from the corner of his eye, appraising and hopefully subtle enough that he doesn’t catch her attention. But it’s immediately apparent that he’s no danger of doing so. Allura’s gaze is caught in a middle distance, halfway between the Juniberry bouquet and nowhere. She doesn’t react to Keith’s covert observation, nor the sounds of cooking breakfast in the kitchen behind them. 

She only stirs when Coran himself reenters the dining area, setting a plate in front of her. Blinking rapidly, Allura looks at the food, then up at him — a gentle flush rising to her cheeks as she realizes her preoccupation, most likely. Keith can almost predict her intonation perfectly before she says, “Oh! Thank you very much, Coran.” 

And he can predict Coran’s equally familiar, “Of course, Princess. Eat up, now. You too, Keith.” 

The last comes with Coran setting a plate down in front of him, identical in amount if not proportion to the first. Keith doesn’t have to look at Allura’s breakfast to know that half of her meat has been replaced with berries. The familiarity settles comfortably in the pit of his stomach, enough that he finds that it makes enough room in him to eat with at least a little bit of genuine appreciation. 

As he starts on his breakfast, Keith watches Allura. She appears to have shaken herself from whatever reverie held her, if the way she digs into her little mountain of blueberries is any indication. But Keith keeps an eye on her regardless, sneaking glances from his periphery as he makes his way through eggs and pastries and tracks Coran’s movements between the kitchen and the dining room. 

“Keith, I believe we need to meet today. As soon as you’re able to.” 

It’s not like Coran has never said that before, but it’s rare enough that it manages to catch Keith off guard. He looks up, eyes wide and still a little suspicious, glancing first at Coran and then at Allura, fully. She finishes the bite of fruit she had been on, and catches the question in his look that he hadn’t thought to ask. 

“Coran and I already spoke about personal matters yesterday.” 

“You did?” 

“Yes.” 

“Ah —”

“I will tell you about it later.” 

“Oh.” 

The startled thing in the pit of Keith’s stomach settles a little, and he nods at Allura. The look she offers him in return is utterly unbeguiling; it’s a little strained around the edges, but it looks entirely in-place on Allura’s face and Keith does not doubt her promise. He exhales long and deep and then turns back to Coran. 

“Alright,” he says, returning to his eggs with just a little less gusto than before. 

It seems to be enough for Coran. He hums tunelessly and turns to take a stack of mail off the counter just behind them, set against window. Allura eyes it with interest, waiting for Coran to announce what’s come in. 

“There’s a reminder here for the ballet, tomorrow night — I believe on behest of Comte Deslys.” 

“Yes!” Allura says, leaning forward, eyes bright. “I remember. Is it too late to messenger that we’ll be attending?” 

“I don’t know if that’s necessary, Princess. I’m sure we’ll see him there tonight.” 

“If you don’t think that’s impolite…” Allura pushes her fork through her eggs with far less enthusiasm than she showed her fruit, though Keith suspects it’s only half because of her worry. 

“Not at all,” Coran replies, “It’s only a reminder. But I will messenger a reply all the same.”

It’s enough that Allura brightens, and even takes a bite of her eggs. “Thank you!” 

“My pleasure.” And it probably is — Coran always smiles like that when Allura does, and Keith always watches it with a mix of aching and warmth that he can’t explain. The expression lingers as he rifles through the other letters — a few invitations to parties now that the weather has brightened, some legal matters that Keith would rather not think about but Allura nods seriously at when Coran explains them. 

As he goes, he picks out a few odd envelopes, laying them neatly on the table. Keith doesn’t need to ask — not only because Coran will point them out when he’s done with everything else. 

Everything else doesn’t even take particularly long. A minute more and they’ve sorted through the morning mail, and Coran taps the pile. “Only four today, Keith.” 

Allura hums — even now, it’s a little strained, though Keith doesn’t understand why. It’s not as if they haven’t been doing this for nearly a year, now. He sighs. 

“Do you think they’re slowing down?” 

“I can’t say,” Coran replies, maybe diplomatically, handing two envelopes to Keith as he keeps two for himself. They both begin to open what they have, Keith scanning the first lines of one letter as Coran reads another aloud, “Your Esteemed Highness —” ( _esteemed highness?_ as if Takashi would _ever_ — ) “— Strange events beyond my control have brought me to Málarín. I wish for nothing more than to see you again. If you would be so kind as to bring me to Arus —” 

At that, Keith looks up from his letter ( _Your Imperial Highness, how I miss you so…_ ) and furrows his brow. “He wants us to pay his passage?” 

Allura makes a scandalized noise beside him. “That’s very audacious,” she murmurs — not unkindly, but Keith doesn’t know what to do with the protective note he hears in her voice. Instead, he glances up at Coran, then down at his hands. 

“I mean, we _could…_ ” 

“We could,” Coran says, all even-keel and kind as ever. Keith worries at his lower lip. 

“— He doesn’t talk like that,” he finally replies, dark and mulish. 

“You would know best.” Coran’s voice is soft, and Keith tries to let go of the tension that has gathered in the set of his shoulders. Neither Coran nor Allura deserve that, he’s well aware. 

But it’s a constant bedfellow and about as stubborn as him. 

Finishing his eggs, Keith lets the fork clatter to the plate. “ _None_ of them sound like him. In _what_ world would he say your imperial highness, your esteemed highness? That’s not — that’s so…” 

Distant. Cold. Things Takashi _tried_ to be, mimicking Dad’s version of politeness. But that wasn’t Takashi with _Keith_. That wasn’t Takashi telling him to sit straighter in the carriage or chasing him through the gardens, or that night — 

A chill drags its nails down his spine, and Keith stubbornly locks his jaw in response. 

“Keith…” Coran’s voice is still soft, but a little bruised now in a way that sets Keith’s teeth on edge. He looks up and Coran’s expression is worse — gentle and tender and _pitying_ and Keith wants to throw his plate across the room just to hear the shattering sound. Like a child. 

“We’ll just have to keep waiting,” he says, laying one arm across the other, both folded in front of him on the table. “Patience yields focus.” 

“— Alright,” Coran agrees, even though it doesn’t sound like agreement at all. Allura, though, proudly reaches out to Keith’s other unopened letter, tearing into with her own forceful sort of grace. 

“ _Brother Dear_ — My word! Half of these young men should look into writing Sentimental fiction. _Do you remember our summers at Bellcoast?_ D’you suppose they just pick up the books available at every market? No creativity!” 

Keith listens to Allura’s commentary and allows the rest of the tension to bleed from his posture, even huffing something that’s near enough to a laugh. He watches her lips twitch upwards as she primply folds the paper in her hands. 

“Nothing to do but wait for better,” she says, as if _that_ is _that_. As if it’s that easy — but there’s no bitterness in the recognition. If anything, he breathes a little easier. 

“Yeah,” he replies. “We will.” 

Allura’s expression softens, just a little. 

After breakfast most of the morning is taken up with the minutiae of the day — lessons, a few responses to things that have come in, a little time for Keith to hide away in the back of the library. He cannot put off entirely what Coran is going to speak with him about, but any time by himself, to gather his thoughts and his wits and whatever patience he’s managed to learn over the years, is better than none. 

Honestly, it wouldn’t be hard for either Coran or Allura to find him here, and it’s probably the grace of their tact (at least they posses some, he thinks half bitterly, half wistfully) that they leave him be for at least an hour when he slinks off to his usual spot. And he’s as grateful as he is frustrated at their consideration — he doesn’t really want to find a new place to simply be. The top floor of the estate is high enough that he can see the tops of the trees, and the streets below look small, and the small window in this back alcove is just enough to let in light to read, or watch the people beyond the gates. 

If he could stay here all day, he just might. 

But life never quite seems to care about what he wants. 

Eventually, Keith picks himself up from the window seat, knowing that he’s really only delaying the inevitable, now. His educated guess as to the matter Coran needs to discuss with him doesn’t really help — but what can he do? Hide? — Which, honestly, sounds fairly tempting. But Keith stretches out the knots in his spine and leaves the sanctuary of the library for somewhere Coran probably will be. 

He gets it in one — slipping into Coran’s study only to find him sitting at his desk, intently reading one document among the many piled there. 

At the sound of Keith entering, Coran looks up and greets him with a smile. 

“Excellent timing,” he says, gesturing to the chair by the desk, continuing on as Keith takes a seat. “I was just going through some of the paperwork we need to go over.” 

“This is — what you wanted to talk about?” Keith asks warily. 

“Indeed. I — understand that some of this might be… sensitive to speak of. But it is _time_ sensitive as well, and —” 

“Just say it.” 

Keith winces a little at how it came out, fumbles with the wording of a would-be apology, but Coran doesn’t look phased and slowly, Keith lets his snapped reply go as Coran moves a few papers to the center of the desk, in clear view for him to read over. 

“It is uncommon for the holder of the throne to leave an heir undeclared.” 

It’s not a surprise, it really isn’t. They’d had the same conversation at Keith’s last birthday, a few months ago, when he turned of age. It hadn’t ended — well, and part of Keith still burns at the suddenness of the proposition while the other part of him aches with guilt at how he’d yelled at Coran until Allura tearfully interrupted their argument. This is precisely what he’d guessed and exactly what he’d feared and he’d prepared himself for its inevitability. 

And yet his heart skips a beat all the same. 

Keith stares at a middle distance between himself and Coran, and Coran takes his silence as permission to continue. So he does. “At the very least, it would be prudent to deal with Count Harper.” 

“I don’t _want_ to deal with Harper.” Keith hears the way his voice carries all the inflection of a tantrum, one of so many in his childhood, and he hates it and hates himself but it doesn’t make what he said suddenly untrue. He doesn’t _want_ to deal with Harper edging ever closer to the last of the family’s estate and money. He doesn’t _want_ to because dealing means trying to figure out how, and figuring out how means asking himself what his father or mother would do, what Coran or Allura would do, what Takashi would do because all of them were — are — better than Keith ever will be at dealing with politics. 

Useless, hopeless, juvenile. Nothing like his parents or his brother ever hoped he’d be. 

Coran sighs, and it’s not unkind but Keith sinks into himself anyway. 

“I understand.” And he _sounds_ understanding. Like he gets it — like he can feel Keith’s pain and struggle but he _can’t_ , Keith wants to protest. He can’t possibly understand — 

— Except for the fact that he absolutely can. 

Some of the wind in the sails of Keith’s anger guts. 

“This is not an easy topic, nor does it have an easy solution. But the longer you delay in addressing it, the more complicated it will become.” 

Coran is right and how infuriating — for him to be right. For Keith to be so upset that he’s right. This is a concrete thing he can do and should do — it’s just not the concrete thing he _wants_ and giving his time to something that shouldn’t be his responsibility in the first place — 

“— I’m not the throne holder,” Keith says suddenly, head whipping up to defiantly hold Coran’s gaze. 

“Your Highness —”

“I told you not to call me that!” 

“That doesn’t make it untrue.” 

Keith chokes on an exhale like someone caught him in the gut with a hard fist. Coran’s voice is so firm and serious, so far from the gentleness that he wears like a cloak, that Keith can’t help but fall silent as he stands up from behind the desk and walks around it, kneeling beside Keith so that they are at, nearly, eye level. 

“— If you stop searching, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed.” 

— What?

Keith stares at Coran, entirely uncomprehending. Because what he’s implying — it _can’t_ be comprehended. 

Coran holds his gaze soberly, and he doesn’t stop talking. 

“No one can chase rumors forever. You’ll never live in the present if you’re trapped in the past.” 

No — no, no, _no_ . That’s not what he’s doing — because that would mean that Takashi is just some — some _story_. Some bedtime fairy tale, something that’s not real, here, alive in the present. 

Fire blazes in the pit of Keith’s stomach. 

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” he replies hotly, jaw locked like iron. “He could be out there _right now,_ trying to get back — here, to me. He could be searching — he _would_. He’s — he’s Takashi.” 

“Keith —”

“No! He wouldn’t ever have stopped — he _wouldn’t_.” 

“I’m not —”

“He promised!” Keith’s voice scrapes raw against his throat, cracking and burning. Why doesn’t Coran understand? “He _promised!_ He would never break a promise, he _never_ has.” 

In the interim, Coran’s hand has found its courageous way to Keith’s knee, resting there without fear of the lashing, fiery temper that has Keith in its thrall. 

When he has a chance, Coran says, “This is hurting you. Would your brother want you to hurt?” 

Instantly, viscerally and viciously, Keith is reminded of that night. Of Takahi’s worried anger fading the moment he saw the pendant in Keith’s hand, of the way he held on the entire time, down the servants’ stairs and out through the back of the estate — across the lawn, through the ice and snow, the entire time until he was ripped away. And even then, lingering as long as possible — long enough to _promise_ Keith before he pushed him towards the train. 

He doesn’t need to think of these things to know the answer; they just come to him — in his dreams, in his waking hours, every time he closes his eyes. 

No, of course not. 

But what is more selfish: heeding what Takashi would have wanted, or continuing to search despite it? 

Keith feels the moment the fight leaves him, his posture collapsing in on itself until he is limply slouching against the back of the chair. Coran’s look is too knowing, and another time it would have rekindled Keith’s spark. Now he latches onto its surety. 

“What do you think I should do, then?” 

Coran pats his knee. “Take a break, at least. Let us watch out for you, at least for a little while. I can weed through the impostors only after your money.” 

Frost curls up behind his ribs, achingly rusted and biting cold. There is something nice about that idea, but Keith knows how nice things end. 

But he doesn’t want to fight anymore, not right now, so he nods. 

“Thank you,” Coran says, standing. “We’ll deal with the rest of this at a later date. I believe you have some getting ready to do for tomorrow.” 

Keith makes a noncommittal noise. Coran tilts his head, then carefully opens his arms — a clear invitation. 

That, too, would be nice. 

Instead, Keith shakes his head, pushing the chair back and standing as well and murmuring something about finding Allura. 

At least he can avoid disappointing one person. 

* * *

The house can’t be more than twenty minutes outside the city, but it looks like something out of a dream Shiro could never have — like they’ve found themselves in an entirely new world. Even barely past the start of Spring, this is warmer weather than — well, honestly, warmer than he’s remembered in a long while. Maybe years ago the Republic’s summers weren’t so chilly, but the difference between the constantly overcast skies and seemingly endless frost, and this — sunny and bright and warm enough that he doesn’t miss his old coat — is startling, to say the least. 

Butterflies threaten to stir in the pit of his stomach, but as he’s done the entire ride over, Shiro looks to Sam. 

It could be the light of the sun or the city, or the verdant flush of green that is everywhere in Arus and, apparently, its outskirts, but Shiro doesn’t think any of that is responsible for the fullness of Sam’s features. He is probably not any less lean than he had been in the Republic — not after two days across the border, especially after a wicked month dodging the Garrison’s ever sharp eye. But even if he hasn’t yet put on any much-needed weight, he still looks more steady, more filled out where hollows of his cheeks and beneath his eyes had been so cavernous. 

Even if it’s only the difference between there and here that allows Shiro to see it, he cannot help the way his heart twists at having not realized how gaunt he had been. 

How gaunt they all must have been. 

But when the instinct comes to him, Shiro does not look over at Adam. He can’t not feel his presence just on Sam’s other side; it is warm and alive and right there. And Shiro ignores it, choosing instead to level his gaze at Sam’s profile as Sam stares at the walkway up to the little blue-painted wood door flanked by quiet pillars on each side of the porch, and blooming primroses and crocuses and daisies in the garden and the windowboxes. 

It’s not only that Sam’s face looks fuller. For as long as Shiro has known him (almost half a year? the realization sits strangely in his stomach) he has never once seen Sam’s expression _flicker_ like this. Like he’s not assured in what he’s doing, like he’s second guessing his choices — like he’s _nervous_. Pointedly ignoring the way so much of him wants to empathize, Shiro focuses on the things that, if not easier to understand, are at least easier to deal with. Worry, care, sympathy — a little flare of guilt around the edges that he can’t reason with but is familiar enough with (far more than the other feelings) to live with. 

He reaches out to place his hand gently against Sam’s elbow. When Sam startles, it’s a gentle thing; he doesn’t pull away, he doesn’t look as if the contact is unwelcome. It is merely a returning to his senses and Shiro chooses not to be discouraged by it and pull away. 

His courage is rewarded when the worry written across Sam’s expression abates a little, enough that when he smiles, Shiro believes him. 

Patting his hand, Sam says, “It’s alright, My Boy.” 

“It will be.” Shiro tightens his hold a little, chin held high and expression not doing a good job at concealing the warmth that burns in his chest. “You won’t have to do this alone.” 

For a moment, Shiro doesn’t know what he sees on Sam’s face. The nervousness he recognizes — the happiness he’s learning to understand and remember. But this is different: warm but strange and so momentarily overwhelming that Shiro wants to duck his gaze. He doesn’t, though, and it passes as Sam returns the strength of Shiro’s grip by pressing his hand a little harder against Shiro’s. 

Sam’s voice is a little thick, but steady. “I can think of no one else I’d rather have with me than you boys.” He turns to Adam after he says it, and by the way he moves Shiro guesses that he’s offered his other hand. Perhaps Adam takes it to squeeze — probably. Sam, at least, Adam would never leave twisting in the wind. Not for something so important. 

But that burns the wrong way; bitterness is unproductive. Shiro compartmentalizes it, pats Sam’s arm one last time, then frees his hand to open the gate. 

It isn’t rusty, and swings open without protest. 

Shiro thinks of the gate to the Obsidian Palace, howling through each watery, wintry morning. It feels real in that second, but the warm Spring does its best to replace that reality with its own. 

The path to the little porch is made of what must be carefully laid stone — it’s easy to navigate and nowhere near as uneven as half of the Republic’s sidewalks. Some of the flowers bend over the path, brushing gently against the fabric of Shiro’s trousers as he passes by them. He glances at them, at the neat window boxes set outside the curtained windows, the whites and pale blues of the house’s exterior. The fair colors manage not to look washed out and clinical; under the sunlight, they seem as alive as the yellows and pinks and reds of the flowers. 

The three of them pause again at the door, Sam drawing up short and Shiro and Adam falling into line on either side of him. Here, as close as they can be to a world that Sam was violently separated from nine years ago, Shiro can feel his own heartbeat thrum quick in his throat — and he can only imagine what Sam’s pulse must be like. — But empathy is _dangerous_ in a way in way that Shiro cannot afford if he wants to — if he wants to survive, he guesses. The instinct to bury his nerves (his hope, his fear) is alive and well even when he doesn’t find a reason for them. Even when here, where everything is full of light and life, it’s hard to imagine anyone running into the looming shadow of pain, hunger, death. 

He breathes deeply and presses his hand once more against Sam’s arm. 

“Alright,” Sam murmurs, seemingly to himself, but it takes him a breath, then another, to raise his hand up. And then a few more passing seconds before he lays his knuckles against the wood of the door. They rest there, and Shiro only takes his own hand away when Sam draws back enough to knock properly. 

The silence between Sam’s knocking and anything happening hit like concrete, and Shiro dizzily wonders if they have the wrong house — if this is all some mistake, if this is the end of everything that they’ve been working for, because — 

A click, and then the door is just as silent as the gate on its well cared for hinges. 

Later, Shiro will realize that the inside of the house is well lit throughout. In this moment, though, it’s as if he is peering into some vast, dark unknown, struggling to make out the figure of the person who answers the door. And then, when he turns to Sam, it’s as if something in his processing breaks and he finds himself unable to decipher any of the emotions that he sees playing out across his friend’s expression. 

“You...” 

A woman’s voice comes to life then dies in the silence. Shiro watches Sam, watches his eyes widen then crease softly and inexplicably, watches his jaw work a little then tremble a little. 

All he says is, “Colleen.” 

Something else breaks, something better and maybe even good, and it’s as if Sam is animated by a force greater than himself, surging forward as the woman behind the door steps out, both of them meeting halfway with their arms wrapping around each other, the whole moment and movement infinitely collapsing in on itself. Shiro cannot bring himself to look away, despite how intensely private it all feels. 

One of them, or both of them, is shaking hard enough that Shiro can feel it from a distance. From his periphery, he catches a glimpse of Adam, and lighting forks down his spine at the recognition before he pointedly angles his head so that he can only see the reunion between Sam and who must, unequivocally, be his wife. 

Shiro’s throat burns. 

“ _Samuel_ ,” he hears the woman say, her face buried in Sam’s neck. “How — _why_ —” 

“Getting out took a little longer than anticipated,” Sam replies breathlessly, and after a tighter squeeze, Colleen pulls back and whacks her hand against his arm. Her red rimmed eyes and frantic set of her mouth only underscore the action. 

“Why didn’t you _call?_ ” 

“Ah, well. That is — a bit complicated.” Sam’s voice is caught somewhere between tears and laughter, and Shiro aches with its fullness. Then, of course, startles when Sam gestures first at him, then at Adam. “An explanation best had inside — ?” 

Colleen looks at them both as if this is the first time she’s noticed either of them there — which, actually, is probably accurate. Shiro does not flinch when he expects to find some sort of defensiveness or abrasiveness in her gaze — but he almost does when he finds, instead, a warmth he had not expected. 

“Of course,” she says, curling one hand around Sam’s. He takes it as if his hand were made for nothing else in the world, and Shiro cannot remember how nervousness looked on his face. Not when he has settled into something that must feel fundamentally right. 

The inside of the house is not as ornate as the hotel or the shops in the city, but it glows with that same clean, warm care that marks the outside. The old hardwood of the floors is clean and well polished, the rugs are spotless and not threadbare, the curtains are soft and catch the light through the windows. Everywhere Shiro looks, he sees something small and beautiful, and before he can feel any way about it all, he looks at Sam — looks at Sam not looking at the house at all, because all he can do is stare at Colleen. 

Shiro smiles. 

“Let’s sit in the front room — do you need food? Something to drink? Let me —”

“Colleen,” Sam says again, his voice like Spring flowers trembling with their color. “It’s alright.” 

Colleen looks at him for a long few moments, then squeezes his hand and gestures to the sofas artfully, probably lovingly, arranged to catch the sunshine from the big front window. Shiro waits until Sam and Colleen sit before taking a seat himself; apparently Adam had the same idea, as Shiro catches him moving in unison from his periphery only to land on the loveseat beside the chair that Shiro had picked. 

An explanation is necessary, and probably coming, but Shiro cannot blame either Sam or Colleen for taking time to merely look at each other, hands still joined. Something distant — happy, but melancholy — stirs in the cavern of Shiro’s chest watching the soft set of Sam’s mouth and the way Colleen’s eyes look misted over. He curls his own fingers gently against the heel of his palm and rides out the wave of joy and nerves until Sam finally clears his throat. 

“Right, yes,” he says, his free hand reflexively spasming towards his glasses then dropping down to his lap. “Unfortunately, a call was something I simply could not risk, my dear.” 

“Risk?” Colleen’s voice tightens. 

“Ah, well — yes. But we’re — you’re — _oh_ , let me just start at the beginning.” 

There’s a ghost of a laugh in her reply when Colleen says, “That would be best.” 

Sam looks at her, long and adoring, then nods his head toward — _oh_. A thrill rolls down Shiro’s spine when Sam indicates him and Colleen’s attention is drawn his way, then towards Adam when Sam points him out in turn. From the corner of his eye, Shiro sees Adam sit a little straighter, and a rush of relief greets him that he is not the only one affected by their attention — a rush that Shiro quells as soon as it comes. 

“Colleen, I would like to introduce you to my dear friend Adam Walsh, and His Highness, Crown Prince Takashi Shirogane.” 

— Ice stabs clear up through Shiro’s middle. 

They have used the title before — in lessons, in passing comments, as part of a lecture or in the midst of some light hearted teasing. Always in the safety of the Obsidian Palace’s crumbling walls, away from a world that would find even fanciful insurrection and quickly, violently extinguish it. Shiro has _thought_ about it though, too, out in the world where even the thought is dangerous enough. He has thought about it walking towards the business district to get weekly groceries, as he swept streets at work, in the office of the Garrison commander that nearly had him arrested. On the train, through the woods — 

But it’s not a thought that belongs in the sun laced world of Arus, in a house covered in flowers and full to the highest capacity of its heart with love. And it’s a phrase that, spoken aloud, belongs even less. 

This — this whole world, with its glittering lights and lazily flowing river and fine, soft wool is little more than some ephemeral, fragile dream. Saying aloud whom he is supposed to be — whom he should _remember_ being by now, if it’s real at all — will shatter everything. Shiro will break everything good by merely existing where he _should not be_ — 

He does not realize he hasn’t been breathing until Colleen moves and the motion captures his attention. Dizzily, he watches her draw her hand away from Sam (a part of him mourns at the sight) and rises — only to drop to one knee on the ground in front of him. 

Shiro does not know what that means or what to do with it. 

But there must be something in him that either does, or doesn’t care either way, because the moment he sees Colleen kneel (there is nothing in her face but awe that must come from absolute trust and Shiro’s heart breaks a little with it) he’s up himself, reaching out to take Colleen’s hand in his own. 

“Wait, _please_ don’t — there’s no need —”

 _It’s not real_ , he can’t say — because it could be. _I don’t remember anything_ , he can’t say, because he’s meant to impress the Prince and how can he, if he can’t remember anything? 

After a century of a moment, Colleen takes his hand and allows him to help her stand. It’s only then that he realizes, almost absurdly, that she is shorter than him. 

Once she is standing, it’s easier to listen to the pull of his emotions. His voice is steadier when he says, “You mustn’t. — Thank you _so_ much for allowing us into your home.” 

“I —” Colleen’s voice is wet but still diamond sharp, and without warning she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him against her until his face rests on her shoulder and she has fully enveloped him in a — in a — 

Shiro can hardly say the word, even to himself, but after a frantic second of wide and wild eyed confusion, his eyelids drop first to half mast, then closed entirely. He winds an arm around Colleen’s back tentatively, only tightening his hold when he is assured that it is not unwelcome. Colleen is shorter than him, not unhealthily thin but still small, but her embrace is full and strong and Shiro cannot help but feel nostalgic for something he cannot remember — something that makes him feel small and young for the first time in — for the first time since his memories began. 

“Oh!” Colleen’s noise of surprise comes just before she stiffens and pulls back. Surprise and worry and regret flicker to life in Shiro’s stomach as she does — but fondness, too, when he sees how red her face is. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness! I shouldn’t have —”

“No!” Shiro’s own voice is a little desperate, a little light, “No, really, it’s fine, I — it’s _good_ , actually.” 

“— Good?” 

“Warm, if you don’t mind my saying.” 

Colleen looks at him with all the confusion that Shiro feels, then her expression breaks into something caught between exasperation and affection, and all of it is so heavy that Shiro feels he might stumble with it. She reaches out, placing her hand on his arm. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs soberly. “Thank you _so much_.” 

Before he can reply to that — should he remember what he’s being thanked for? should he simply know? — Colleen starts again then turns sharply on her heel and crosses to where Adam is sitting. Shiro watches her — watches them both — as she takes both of Adam’s hands in her own and pulls him to stand — then into an embrace of his own. Shiro swallows back the laugh, entirely kind, that wants to flutter into existence at the expression that crosses Adam’s face. He doesn’t know he’s ever seen that kind of startle, almost _innocent_ and endearing for it, in Adam’s expression. 

He at least remembers that he should still be holding onto some bitterness when he looks at Adam, but as Adam sinks into Colleen’s hug, there’s no room for it amidst the honeyed warmth. 

“And _you_ ,” she tells him, pressed against his shoulder until she pulls away. Then she pokes a finger directly into Adam’s chest. “You helped him, didn’t you? I cannot thank you enough.” 

“ _Oh_ , ah —” Adam stumbles over himself and the simplicity of it makes the warmth in Shiro’s chest throb. “Really, it was the other way around.” 

“That’s not true!” Sam protests from his spot on the sofa. “It was a team effort.” 

Colleen’s entire expression is soft when she carefully pats the side of Adam’s face. “Of course, of course. Regardless, thank you.” 

“I — you’re — you’re welcome.” 

It must suffice; Colleen rubs his arm once more then gestures for him to sit — turns to Shiro and gestures the same. 

“Sam,” she says, turning back to her husband and taking his hand to squeeze. “Your timing might be _very_ late,” (and Sam colors what would be amusingly, if Shiro’s heart weren’t twisting again) “But still impeccable. Your children are both home today.” 

“They — are?” 

“Yes.” 

Sam’s eyes are as bright as they were in that first moment he’d laid them on his wife, and this time Shiro does duck his head as if that were enough to give this intimate moment some privacy. However, before he can offer to excuse himself, Colleen is decisively crossing the room back towards the way they all came in. 

“All of you, sit tight. I’m going to get them.” 

Shiro is still warm where Colleen had — where she’d _hugged_ him, so fully and completely, and that’s really the only thing that he can tangibly hang onto to make sure that he remembers that all this is real. This golden laced house full of light and love, this family coming back together. Dazedly, Shiro looks over at Sam, and Sam doesn’t say anything at all. 

No, that’s not a surprise. Not the way his eyelids seem to hold back a threatening flood, nor the flush in his cheeks. Shiro remembers Sam’s voice on the train, how he’d spoken about his family like revealing some tender, fragile thing, a secret like a delicate bird. He can’t empathize entirely, but he can allow his heart to throb with a happiness he hadn’t — hadn’t known before he’d met Sam. Met both of them. Sam and Adam. 

Voices rumble down the hallway, and a remembered chill works its way down Shiro’s spine. There are no MPs here, no lingering Republic frost, and knowing that is enough to keep his breathing even and steady, to not lose himself. 

Sam stands just as the sounds reach the threshold of the room, and instinctively Shiro does the same. Beside him, Adam follows suit, barely delayed, but they both remain quiet, watching Sam. 

His expression shatters. 

Any tears he’d held back now fall freely, catching the light through the window and glittering like jewels as he takes a cautious step forward, one arm half extended as if he cannot bring himself to touch what he sees. In that moment, it’s as if no one breathes. 

“— Dad?” 

(The voice is high and panicky and so _young_ that he doesn’t know what to do except help him — ) 

Sam sucks in a breath. “Matthew.” 

Shiro finally turns, enough to see Colleen and what must be Matthew and — why was he about to name Sam’s daughter? An inexplicable surety overcomes him in that moment, as if he knows exactly who he’s looking at despite having never seen these people before. But his own feelings don’t matter at all, not when Matthew is taking a step forward and Sam’s daughter is clinging to her mother’s hand, wide eyed and disbelieving. 

Between the two of them, Matthew and Sam have managed to reach other, and when they do it’s like the tension snaps clean in half. They grab at each other, hands hooking into a hold as Sam draws Matthew solidly against his chest. With his other hand, he gestures to Katie and says her name, “Katie.” 

— Did he…? No, Shiro must have thought it after Sam called to her. 

Katie looks at the scene in front of her, gaze sharp if wet (so much like her mother), but it begins to melt by painstaking increments. Finger by finger she lets go of her mother’s hand, and even if she then crosses her arms against her chest, she takes a step forward. 

“I use Pidge now,” she says warily. Against his father’s chest, Matthew laughs. 

“Yeah, I finally got it to stick.” 

Sam’s expression creases with the force of his smile growing brighter. “Pidge it is.” 

His arm is still extended to her, but Katie — _Pidge_ — still only looks at it. Colleen puts a hand on her shoulder. 

“How do we know it’s really you?” 

Pidge’s voice is icy but not cruel — Shiro thinks he hears the struggle in it, unless he is merely projecting. But something about how tightly she holds her jaw makes him think that’s not so. And when Sam laughs, cracking in the middle, he knows it’s not. 

“I suppose I’ve earned that. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” 

“What an understatement,” Matthew says into Sam’s shirt, and it earns him a ruffling of his hair with the hand not reaching out towards Pidge. 

Pidge takes another step forward. Her arms loosen. 

“What if I don’t want to?” 

“Are you worried?” Sam’s voice is so tender, Shiro’s throat burns. Pidge doesn’t use words to answer, but it’s written so plainly across her face, the way she’s holding herself. Sam continues, “If you worry too much about what could go _wrong…_ ” 

Pidge’s lips move silently, then Shiro can hear the low murmur of her voice, “ — You might miss a chance to do something great. — _Dad_.” 

Then her arms are out and she teeters into a half run, collapsing against her father’s other side, one arm around him and the other around Matthew. Sam presses his hand against the back of her head until she presses her face against his chest. Then he completes the circle, wrapping her in his embrace. 

Shiro looks away, accidentally meeting Adam’s gaze before they both look pointedly at the floor. 

They wait in silence as Sam hugs his children; Shiro is so caught up in trying to give them whatever privacy he can afford without bodily leaving the room that he doesn’t notice that Colleen has come to stand right between he and Adam until she is already there. He starts, just a little, and Colleen glances at him to give him a honeyed smile before turning back to look at her family. 

Her family, together, whole, _alive_ . Guilt haunts him once more, when he thinks about how much _sooner_ they could have been here, if only he’d trusted them. 

He knows how to live with guilt that he doesn’t understand; guilt with a reason is new enough that he’ll have to learn with that, too. 

“Okay,” Sam says, “We have plenty of time for more of this. I promise.” He pulls away, enough to tap one finger against Pidge’s nose, then ruffle Matthew’s hair once more. “For now, how about another round of explanations?” 

Matthew blinks owlishly behind his glasses, his eyes as red rimmed as the rest of his family’s, but it’s enough that he turns and, like his mother, finally notices that there are other people in the room. As he stares first at Adam, Shiro takes in his appearance. That nagging feeling of _I know this_ won’t leave him be even though no memories surface, so he has to content himself with simply cataloguing Matthew’s appearance. He doesn’t seem to be quite as old as Shiro, but he’s not terribly young, and certainly not as young as his sister. And he _looks_ like his parents — Sam’s soft expression, Colleen’s auburn hair. All four of them fit together with a breathless, sparkling, utterly easy cohesion. 

When Matthew turns his gaze to Shiro, a shock runs down his spine. It’s not only that the sensation reaches a fever pitch — though that certainly doesn’t _help_ — but Matthew’s gaze also sharpens, confused but clinical. Glancing at Pidge, her expression is much the same — maybe more biting, but just as keenly observant. Shiro wants nothing more than to shrink into himself and ghost away. 

Instead, he defiantly stands a little straighter. 

“These are my children,” Sam tells them, one hand on each of the kids’ shoulders. “Matt and — well, Pidge now is the name, right?” 

“Right,” Pidge says decisively, never breaking her gaze away from Shiro’s face. 

“Pidge it is. Matt, Pidge, I’d very much like you to meet my friends. I owe them a great deal — I don’t think I’d have been able to come back at all if not for their help.” 

Adam colors and Shiro’s heart twists to see it, and to hear Sam’s confidence in what he says. “ _Sam_ — ” Adam starts to protest; Sam shakes his head. 

“No arguments. It’s very true. Kids, this is Adam Walsh.” 

Inclining his head, Adam says, “A pleasure.” Matt reaches out jovially, capturing Adam’s hand in a handshake. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” he replies. 

— Oh, god. It’s going to happen again, isn’t it. 

Shiro braces himself the best he can, but it’s no easier the second time around when Sam announces, “And this is His Highness, Crown Prince Takashi Shirogane.” 

What he _is_ prepared for, at least, is Matt’s reaction. It still rocks him like lightning, to see Matt’s eyes go wide and for him to begin sinking towards the ground on one knee, but he’s in time to reach out, catching Matt’s hand halfway down to keep him from completing the motion. “No! No, it’s fine, please don’t.” 

The rest should have been predictable (they are their parents’ children) but Shiro can only predict the first part — this hug, too, comes as a shock. It’s a little different from Colleen’s — wilder and fiercer — but it’s just as affectionate and warm and Shiro finds himself unable to resist falling into it, too. 

“You keep saving us,” Matt says into his shoulder. “ _Thank you so much_.” 

Adam was right — Sam’s the one who deserves thanks for all this, really. Adam does too, if Shiro’s being honest. He, himself, has done so little in the grand scheme of things; he’s done less than his most, considering how long it took him to part with their train fare. But Matt is clinging to him as if Shiro had stepped between all of the family and certain, fatal danger — 

— _The crown prince himself led them to safety_. 

That _is_ a memory, from only a month ago. Sam’s voice had been firm if brimming with emotion, and Shiro had responded to that more than the words themselves. Because pain was something he could soothe, if only partly; the rest was inconceivable. 

Except here he is, with Matt clutching onto the ghost of the person that saved his life. 

As if Shiro could ever be that person. 

Before Shiro can wrap his mind around the implications of this, Matt goes through the same process as Colleen — hiccupping a little noise of alarm and pulling away with a litany of apologies tumbling into each other. 

“Oh, that’s — ! I shouldn’t have — I’m _so_ sorry, I — ”

“No, no — it’s _fine_ , really!” 

Matt looks at him, wary, dubious, worried, so Shiro reaches out to place his hand gently on Matt’s arm. The shock that runs through Matt is hard enough that Shiro feels it too, and it’s enough that Shiro nearly jerks his hand back until Matt catches it in his own, his frazzled confusion replaced by a beaming smile. 

“Okay,” he says simply. “Then at _least_ accept my thanks.” 

“I — ” It’s something he could do; it’s important to Matt, and Matt isn’t just Sam’s son. He’s _nice_ — warm and friendly and funny; he’s kind and he’s a person and that’s enough for Shiro to feel the pull to help him. To hear what Matt is asking of him and provide it, particularly when it would take so little effort. 

But what is more selfish: giving Matt what will help him, or refusing to take gratitude for the actions of someone Shiro is sure he could never be? 

Except Matt is waiting for him and this, at least, is a tangible problem in the present moment and Shiro’s pragmatism wins out. It is the last thing his face wants to do, but Shiro smiles. “Of course. You’re welcome, Matthew.” 

Matt smiles wider and nods, moving towards Adam to capture him in a hug as well. Over Matt’s shoulder, Adam casts a wide eyed look at Shiro, _Is this going to be a frequent occurrence?_

Shiro cannot help but chuckle quietly under his breath, his own pointed look replying, _Must be a family thing._

Adam starts to grin back, but Shiro remembers himself and glances away before he can see. 

It would be easier if Adam was at least _consistent_ in not wanting Shiro around, but then, nothing in life is easy. He can deal with this reality. 

Though Pidge might be a little harder to deal with. 

Even when he’s not looking at her, Shiro can feel the way her gaze is tacked onto him, cutting twin holes in the jacket Simonne gifted him. That in and of itself isn’t a shock; he’s known how clever Sam is for months now, and Colleen is just as sharp. But he simply doesn’t know what to _do_ with her stare — would Takashi Shirogane know? Would he understand what she was feeling and soothe whatever that might be with some silvery words? Would he know how to hold himself in a world this beautiful and vibrant, with a family so bursting with emotion? 

Even if he didn’t, would it make a difference anyway, that he felt real? 

Matt, at least, seems intent on repaying the life saving favor he assumes Shiro has given in, because he steps in before Shiro has a chance to do anything. Ruffling her hair, he says, “Gee, can you stare any harder?” 

“I’m _not_ ,” Pidge protests, batting at Matt’s hand. It’s a lie, but it breaks the tension and she moves to sit heavily on the sofa beside her father. Darkly casting her gaze at everyone else in the room in turn, she adds, “It just feels suspicious, is all.” 

“ _Suspicious?_ ” Matt relaxes into the seat beside Shiro, seemingly taking Shiro at his word that formality isn’t necessary — something Shiro meets with gratitude. “I didn’t realize you were _that_ much of a conspiracy theorist.” 

“I’m not!” This time, the protest sounds far more genuine — and hurt. Pidge leans forward as Sam sits next to her, Colleen perching beside Adam. “Why are you so — _casual_ about all of this? It’s been nine years!” 

From his periphery, Shiro sees hurt ghost across Sam’s face, but Pidge’s presence is far larger than her size and her argument with Matt commands the room. 

“Of course it has!” Some heat has replaced the teasing edge in Matt’s voice, less angry than… distressed would be a good word for it. “Why aren’t you happy?” 

“Why aren’t _you_ more careful?” 

“Seriously, Pidge? You’re going to pull _that_ with me?” 

“Why shouldn’t I?!” 

“It’s _your_ fault we all got separated in the first place!” 

Pidge flushes scarlet, her eyes wide and caught between rage and a hurt so bone deep that Shiro feels it across the room. Matt is tensed beside him and if Shiro had to guess, he’d say that Matt must look much the same: stricken, hurt, bewildered. Sam leans forward and so does Colleen but no one can say anything for a moment. 

_That’s enough, now_. ( — in a deep, familiar timbre, a woman’s hand on his shoulder — ) 

Every pair of eyes snaps toward him, and Shiro is left with the freezing realization that he’d said that aloud. 

(God, he’d been _well_ aware that journeying to Arus would be difficult, but he never imagined he’d be his own worst enemy.) 

His mouth dries instantly and Shiro wonders if sheer force of will will ever be enough to simply vanish into thin air. He might be the first to prove it, if his pounding heart is any indication, but since he is still unfortunately corporeal he needs to — apologize, or something. Excuse himself, whatever it takes to extricate his presence from a distinctly family matter. 

But then he _looks_ at everyone (because it’s the least he can do, to not be a coward about it) and he doesn’t see — _anger_. 

He realizes in that moment that he’s not afraid. 

Shiro has absolutely no idea where the words come from or what possesses him, but he stands, quiet and non-threateningly. Pidge’s wild, flustered gaze tracks him as he crosses the room and kneels before her so they are at eye level. 

“It’s hard,” he hears himself say, his voice firm and pitched low. “Going through something like that, and waiting so long for your family to come back together. I am so sorry you had to experience that, Pidge.” 

Her lips purse into a little, stricken _o_ shape. The fight leaves her posture. 

“Things like that aren’t _anyone’s_ fault. It’s amazing how much you care about your family — inspiring. I’m sorry you were separated for so long, but I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you all together.” 

She is still. Shiro wonders if he is still breathing. 

Then she extends both of her arms in a clear question, and Shiro’s lungs fill. 

“Of course,” he murmurs, offering his arm. She leans in to wrap around his neck. 

“Sorry,” she says into his shoulder. 

“It’s all alright,” he replies, as if he has the right. But when Pidge pulls away, she looks more than mollified. 

From behind him, Matt also murmurs his apologies, but Shiro is sure they’re for his sister so he says nothing. He simply stands again, then makes the critical mistake of looking at Sam out of some force of habit. 

Sam’s gaze, locked right onto Shiro, is so intense and bright and honey warm that Shiro nearly collapses. 

He walks the few paces back to his seat backwards, knees shaking and chest aching. Matt isn’t stone stiff beside him anymore, which is, at least, some consolation. 

Colleen claps once, softly, but Shiro jumps from the sound all the same. He feels Matt hesitate, then carefully press his elbow into his own. 

“Well, I believe that there’s no better cure for what ails one than medicine,” she says, and Sam laughs which earns him a tender wink. “But when that’s not necessary, food will suffice.” 

Pidge smiles, relaxing against the back cushions, and even Matt feels less tense at his side. 

Shiro practically jumps to his feet. 

This time, there is no miracle that feeds him the right things to say, and the looks he gets are more garden-variety curious. Knowing full well that he will fumble with this, he forges on regardless. “Oh — ! Sorry, I — please let me. You all should take your time to catch up and I — it’s the least I can do, after your hospitality —” 

Colleen looks about to argue, but Sam takes on the role of savior this time. “Sure, sure. That’d be fine.” 

Then, just when Shiro is about to breathe, Adam stands. 

“I’ll help. — If only so that lunch is edible.” 

Even knowing that it’s too playful, too familiar, Shiro sends him a dour look. Adam grins, and this time Shiro doesn’t look away. It doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“We’re counting on you boys,” Sam tells them, humor lacing his voice. But the look he gives Shiro is knowing, and Shiro takes the out with as much grace as he can muster up. 

* * *

Adam is _not_ going to protest the complimentary breakfasts at the hotel, nor the chance to dine out with the money they’d managed to save along the trip. But there is something _settling_ about retreating to the Holts’ kitchen, and not only because they are away from the happily reunited family. 

Not only because he is alone with Shiro. Maybe it’s settling despite that fact. 

What had he been expecting? This is _precisely_ what he deserves. When he had walked away from Shiro, their first night in Arus, he hadn’t come back. He’d barely said a word in the hotel that night, nor on the trip over. Studiously avoiding Shiro’s looks, his attention, had been about as difficult as surviving the coldest nights in the Republic, and his reward was worse — entirely what he’d been aiming for, with Shiro finally, _finally_ starting to avoid him as well. 

Feeling that distance, as he’d watched his friend and the reason he was probably still alive settle in with his family (his _real_ family) — Adam is, quite frankly, surprised he’s still standing. 

He’s never hated his survival instincts quite so much. 

But the bitterness will end him if he dwells on it, and he’s already kept himself going this long, hasn’t he? Better to swallow back the bruised, aching way his heart throbs itself into existence behind his ribs and pretend that this is — fine. That this is all _fine_. 

Because it is, isn’t it? This is precisely what they had been hoping for. What they needed. 

It would take a fool to deny what Adam had seen in the drawing room; and he’s many things, but a fool is _not_ one of them. Shiro’s composure, his gentleness with all of the Holts, his surety with Katie — _Pidge_ , now — it was nothing short of regal. It was something out of a fairy tale book, or Adam’s most distant and carefully avoided memories, and the knowledge wraps around his bones with enough force to break them. 

Shiro can _do this_. And Adam had already known that, but seeing it affirmed, again and again, might be the one thing that finally does him in. 

For now, though, he is alive and, technically, much more _well_ than he’s been in years. So he watches Shiro putter around the Holts’ pristine, lovingly decorated kitchen with that mix of bitterness and quiet amusement that he cannot shake. He won’t wait long — he certainly hadn’t been kidding about salvaging lunch, but he needs a moment to — be. 

Of course, Shiro choose right then to questioningly pick up the largest chef’s knife and Adam needs to intervene before anyone else loses a limb. 

Adam fluidly reaches over Shiro’s shoulder to grab the knife from him, quick enough that Shiro only startles after Adam has it firmly in hand by the handle. The dour look before morphs into nearly a pout — before Shiro seems to remember himself and looks away. 

“That’s dangerous,” is all he says, and Adam nods. It was dangerous, and Shiro had not fallen into the rhythm of their teasing at it. A loss on every count. 

“Well,” he replies, slotting it back into the drawer it had come from, “I figured it was dangerous either way.” 

“ — You could have warned me.” 

“I could have. — See if they have any bread.” 

Shiro turns, enough to arch a brow at him, but he does as he’s told, checking the box for bread. For his part, Adam manages to scrounge up fruits and jam, and is already slicing the apples and oranges with an appropriately sized knife when Shiro comes up with what looks like a freshly baked loaf. 

“Very nice,” Adam says smoothly, nodding to the open drawer and the other, smaller knife within. “Cut a few slices.” 

“Bossy,” Shiro huffs as he reaches for the knife to cut — the _thinnest_ slices Adam has ever seen. After a quick correction on the size, Shiro switches to a more reasonable thickness. 

Adam watches him from the corner of his eye. 

Then, he says, “Didn’t you say you used to work in a kitchen?” 

Shiro stills and looks up, and for a moment it’s like he’s forgotten the distance. “What?” 

“When we first met. One of your credentials — a kitchen in… Kane, was it?” 

“You remember that?” Shiro huffs, and it’s a little less put on. He turns back to his work, silent for a second or two. “— Hauling things, mostly. Scrubbing down the floors, whatever tasks they needed. I never cooked.” 

“Ah, I see. That makes more sense.” 

“Oh, please.” 

Adam hums, then arranges his diced fruit in the middle of a platter he’d gotten from the cabinet. “Maybe we can make sandwiches too, if they have any meat.” 

It’s not really a question of _if_ ; the Holts have a well stocked kitchen, more than Adam has known in — long enough that he’s not willing to think that far back. He’s the one puttering around now, checking the icebox and pantry, and he sinks into the task willingly enough that he’s surprised, when Shiro speaks again. 

“I’m sorry,” is what he says, and Adam freezes. He’s not looking in Shiro’s direction, and it is one, small thing he is thankful for. 

But he can’t reply. 

So Shiro just continues on. 

“If I had done anything to upset you — but, moreso, if I made you feel as if I need your company, when you’ve made it clear that you don’t want mine.” 

Adam wonders, briefly, if he can fit himself in the icebox. It seems a pleasant way to go. 

Shiro’s voice is — strong. Not entirely apologetic, but not unapologetic either. It’s careful and diplomatic and, damn it, precisely what they need Shiro’s voice to be if he’s going to step into the role of Takashi Shirogane. 

It burns more, for that. 

He realizes that he’s still bent over the icebox. Adam straightens, his back to Shiro but at least upright, and says, “You haven’t.” 

Because he hasn’t, he truly hasn’t. There have been looks, moments when Adam falters and turns and they nearly catch each other’s eye, and Adam feels Shiro’s presence like a constant, burning star. But Shiro is — composed. He keeps himself contained and held well, and when he fumbles he doesn’t spiral. He simply takes a step forward and regains his physical and metaphorical balance. 

When Adam feels the urge to reach out and steady him regardless, it has nothing to do with Shiro forcing his feelings. 

“ — Alright,” Shiro says. Adam doesn’t want to hear the note of resignation in his voice, but he likes to think he’s a little better than living by his wants alone. 

When he turns, Shiro has spun back to face the counter, and he feels, viscerally, what it’s like to look at someone’s back instead of their face. The urge seizes him, to reach out and hold onto Shiro’s shoulder, or still his arm in order to take his hand. To feel the human warmth that makes up their connection, every time they touch. 

He closes the distance between them, but he keeps his hands to himself. Instead he leans against the counter, keeping Shiro in his periphery’s line of sight. 

It aches, but maybe not as much as it would if he had to look Shiro in the eye. 

How terribly selfish, to be glad for that. 

Like the way he’s lived his life until now. 

The kitchen is haunted by the sounds of a knife through bread and twin breathing, just slightly out of pace. Adam knows that neither of them will break from this if they leave it just so. In another day or so, Shiro will fall into the arms of a family that will be glad to have him, regardless of his true identity. And Adam will have enough money to go wherever he likes — to live a new life, after his old one was destroyed nine years ago. 

They will get their wishes and go their own ways and neither of them will do it broken. 

Except. 

“It’s just a little overwhelming,” he says, not quite surprising himself but not feeling entirely in his own body, either. “I thought it might be easier to keep things less… complicated.” 

“Complicated?” Shiro’s back stiffens, then releases. “I didn’t think it was that complicated.” 

“— Maybe it wasn’t.” 

“But…” His fingers drum against the counter as he releases a breath. “ — Overwhelming, I — I understand that.” 

Of course — because how could this not be overwhelming for Shiro, too? How could he gather himself with such dignity under the scrutiny and emotion and praise and suspicion of Sam’s entire family? 

Of course — because he’s Shiro. And Adam can’t expect anything less. 

“I’m sorry,” they say at the same time. Both of them pause, and then both of them breathe through a laugh. Shiro turns and when their gazes meet, Adam can’t bring himself to wish they didn’t. 

Something fragile and golden struggles back to life between them. 

“I’ve learned something,” Shiro says, “From Sam. And you. It’s — easier to do things if we do them together.” 

Adam’s eyes widen, and he can’t decipher if Shiro is offering or asking. Or if it would make a difference if he knew. 

What-ifs will drown you. Adam knows that to be true. So he ducks his head, the corner of his mouth pulling upward. 

“Together, then.” 

* * *

Keith arrives in Arus when he is nine, both of his hands curled around the ends of his jacket, snow and soot still clinging to his hair, his arms, the legs of his pants. Two maids flank him on either side, one of them adjusting her shawl around his shoulders. Keith doesn’t know where everyone else is — the valets and staff, and Gran and Mom and Dad and Takashi. He doesn’t know but he doesn’t think about it because they’re coming. 

Takashi said so. 

Someone tells him where they are, but Keith does not hear them. He only feels a hand on his shoulder (Elodie, he idly guesses, that must be Elodie and her shawl and her guiding hand) and he follows it, down off the train, through streets lined with snow and through flurries that land wetly against his chilled nose and eyelids. Keith blinks against them, then closes his eyes entirely, led by the feeling of Elodie’s hand on his shoulder. 

Later, someone will tell him that Keith spends his first few days in Arus in the Empire’s embassy, waiting while Elodie and Constance wait for a call that will tell them where it’s safe to go next. He doesn’t sleep much in the cot that’s provided, because Takashi isn’t here yet and Mom isn’t there to tuck him in, and Gran isn’t there to soothe his hair back, but it’s okay. 

He can wait for them. 

Eventually, Elodie guides him into a car and they spend a week in a little apartment not far from the embassy. Sleep is difficult to come by, but Keith cannot physically stay awake for two weeks, so he dozes instead. 

When he dozes, he dreams. He never quite remembers them, but he often wakes up coughing or crying or yelling, and almost always reaching out for something that, after he leaves sleep behind, he can’t name or see. Elodie sits with him when it happens, brushing his hair or cleaning his face with a soft, clean cloth, but Keith can’t understand why _she’s_ here and it’s not Mom or Gran or Takashi. 

Less than a month after stepping off the train, they relocate to a final, safe destination. That’s what everyone says, that it’s safe here, that he’s safe. _It’s going to be fine, Your Highness,_ Elodie tells him, smoothing down the lapel of the warm coat she’d bought him here. _You’re safe now._

Her voice has always been rough in the way that the staff’s voices are rough, but kind in a way that Keith has known his whole life because that’s how long he’s known Elodie. But the warmth in her tone is so strange and grating against all of his bones because why? Who cares? Safe from what? What does it matter, when no one answers the most important question of _where is his family?_

He doesn’t get an answer to that in the embassy, in the little apartment, in the car ride, in the new estate that looms like a mountain in front of him. It’s not as big as the palace — nothing here seems to be — but it’s overcast and darkening out when they arrive and Keith trembles at the shadows haunting every window and the places where the balconies and roof overhangs cast them. Instinctively, Keith’s hand tightens in Elodie’s hold. 

The man who greets them is entirely unfamiliar. 

Against the gloom of the day (and the season, and the house, and the year) he is almost vibrant — not simply his red hair and the gold woven into his attire, but the way he beams at the three of them as he opens the door. 

“Your Highness! I’m glad you’ve all made it here in one piece, as it were. Please, come in.” 

Keith looks up at him, then glances at the rooms on either side of the hallway, as if Takashi will come stumbling out of one — 

( — to take his hand tightly in his own, as the walls and windows rattle and voices echo up from the stairs to the ballroom. But it’s okay, because Takashi is here, Takashi will save them — ) 

It’s only when Elodie’s hand moves to his shoulder that Keith realizes he’s curled into her side, and even though only _little kids_ who aren’t princes with a duty to fulfill hide themselves in someone skirts, he can’t — he can’t _help_ it, he — 

“Ah, it’s a bit dark in here, isn’t it?” The man’s voice is still cheery, but not so — _loud_ as it had been. Then the hallway is flooded with light and Keith blinks against Elodie’s side. Her hand stays on his, but it’s bright enough in here now that Keith can pull away without looking at the ghost of his bedroom as it came tumbling down around him. 

The man is smiling at him when Keith looks up. 

Keith can’t smile back yet. 

But he doesn’t argue when he’s shown the rest of the estate. 

* * *

Allura’s bed is barely visible under the layers of clothing piled on top of it, but Keith watches her dig through her closet and add to it with all the same — arms crossed against his chest, leaning against the wood doorframe, expression largely neutral until it softens when she makes a noise of protest at being fully wrapped into a dress she’d clearly been trying to remove and toss onto the bed. 

“Need a hand?” He asks, and he’s rewarded with precisely what he’d predicted — another sound, this one more startled and halfway embarrassed as Allura turns on her heel to face him, still tangled up in her clothing. 

“Honestly!” She replies, bundling up the dress to pull it off and only managing to knock herself off balance. Keith waits the few beats it will take her to agree. Finally, the fight leaves her and she adds, “ — Yes, please.” 

“You got it.” Keith crosses the room to get to her, suppressing the chuckle that wants to bloom in the back of his throat. Instead he merely brushes his hand against her arm to let her know that he is, in fact, there, then sets to work on the fabric bunched around her face. Which is — honestly easier said than done. “How did you _manage_ this?” 

“ _Oh_ , I don’t know,” Allura sighs against the material pressed to her face, grumbling only a little when Keith tugs too hard. “I believe the zipper is broken on this one, or the clasp at the top.” 

“Let me look.” He’s no expert on any kind of fashion — far more content to take Allura’s advice when it comes to matters of dressing — but after a little digging he can see where the metal and cotton have snagged together, and it only takes some fiddling to separate the two. Once he does, the dress slips cleanly from Allura’s head, leaving her blinking owlishly, hair disheveled but otherwise free. 

After a second, she smiles. 

“Thank you, Keith,” she says, taking the dress from him and folding it before tossing it on the pile with the rest. He eyes its trajectory idly. 

“So what was wrong with that one?” 

“Besides the fact that it tried to _strangle_ me?” The haughtiness in Allura’s voice is entirely for show — which, if Keith didn’t already know that, would have guessed when he hears the laughter laced through each word. “It’s just — it feels very young, I suppose.” 

“It does?” 

“Mm.” 

Glancing at the gauzy pink fabric, he’s not sure what makes it young looking — it’s so similar to everything else Allura has been wearing over the last nine years. — Oh. That might just be it. Keith’s brow furrows as he mulls over this latest development. 

For lack of a doorframe to press against, Keith opts to lean against Allura’s vanity, careful not to disturb the few things she has scattered on top. He’s not about to break one of the few things she’d saved from home, after all, not when he just wants to watch her eye the rest of wardrobe critically. 

“Does this mean you’re due for a shopping trip?” 

“Perhaps,” she replies distantly, pressing one finger to the lower curve of her mouth. “It feels wasteful when I have so much.” 

“I dunno.” Keith’s hand moves to rub against his arm instead of merely holding himself. “If everything you have is too young, that’s not a problem that’s going to go away, right?” 

Allura stills, and when she looks up at him the unbridled openness of her expression makes Keith want to duck behind something to hide away. But he doesn’t — he nods, and feels the set of his mouth soften in turn. 

“That’s a very practical way of putting it,” Allura says, hanging up the item in hand and glancing at the bed. “I could sort through these to donate, as well.” 

“Sounds like a plan.” 

Then she looks back up at him — this time more sharply, playful but knowing. Keith sighs as heavily as he can manage but his burgeoning grin betrays him. 

“And I’ll go with you into town,” he tells her. And he certainly can’t begrudge her when her face lights up like that. She moves to stand beside him, carefully pressing her hand just below his on his arm. 

“My hero.” There is something more serious in her voice that Keith doesn’t want to place; he’s content enough like this, doing something for someone that doesn’t hurt anyone. Then her eyes widen and he doesn’t stop his laugh as she frantically scrambles to her bed. “But I _must_ sort through these first!” 

“Right.” Keith lifts himself up from his perch — and hovers for a moment as Allura sorts through her things. “ — Thanks, Allura.” 

She doesn’t look up at him, but she doesn’t need to. 

“Every time, Keith.” 

* * *

Lights circle him, passing across his face, flickering against the back, blank wall, bright in the darkness even when they illuminate nothing. Shiro follows them the moment they come to life, but the problem is that they are turning every which way and he can’t seem to track where they’re going — nor can he seem to get his feet under him. Which is ridiculous; he’s never had trouble walking, not when he needs to stand for endless hours as everyone around him discusses things he’s yet to learn or — no, no he never… it was walking across the country, right? That’s what he did — days and nights, weeks and months of hopping on and off freight cars and walking through the woods — 

He wishes deeply that he’d paid more attention to his lessons, because maybe then he’d be able to decipher what the lights are saying. It’s all stuff he’s going to have know one day, so he should have just paid better attention. Maybe if he did, everyone wouldn’t have — 

— The worse problem is that he can’t _move_ . He can give his all into tracking the lights if he could just _sit up_ . That’s what’s holding him back, isn’t it? The fact the he can’t just get up, even though he’s trying, please, believe him, he’s _trying_. 

The light bends down over him, curiously, and its noise is twinkling but Shiro understands it. 

“Keep trying,” it says, as if Shiro isn’t. As if he could do better. 

He can. He _can_ do better. 

Thunder rumbles in the distance. 

The other light leans over the top of his head and he wants nothing more than to take it, but he can’t move. She places her hand against the pillow, just beside his head, out of reach. He looks into her face, nearly blinding himself, but if he looks away for a moment she’ll be — 

“We need to go,” she says, and she says his name, maybe, because he recognizes it but it slips away the moment it leaves her starry lips. “Right now. Come with us.” 

“I can’t,” he tells her, desperate and raw, “I need to find — ” 

“Let’s go!” The last light, beyond where he can see, is something he must obey. He has to _go_ because if they _don’t_ — 

“Please!” The light begs. “Come on, come on!” 

_I’m coming_ , he wants to say. Lightning rattles the walls and suddenly he is falling into the sheets below him, so endless and burning hot that they wrap around his lungs and fill his mouth and he cannot _breathe_ — the pressure threatening to split his face clean open — 

— Thunder, ice, someone is _screaming_ — 

Shiro opens his eyes to the sound of his own voice, shattering through the night. 

He has the blankets bunched up in his hands — no, in his hand, they’re all tangled up around his left hand, because that’s — his pulse races in his throat and throbs in his temple, and the moment that Shiro recognizes that the sounds are coming from _him_ , from nothing more than a _nightmare_ , he silences himself — breathing raggedly as he tries to calm himself. 

This is the guilt he is familiar — coming from nowhere, always present despite the fact that no one ever hears him, that he hasn’t bled this — this _weakness_ on anyone else. 

Except. 

“ _Shiro?_ ” 

The voice comes just before the hand on his elbow — or it doesn’t, and Shiro can’t keep track of time the right way. Either way, Shiro flinches, even though he recognizes Adam the moment he’s in the room, curling his shoulders in on themselves, head low and hopefully disguised by the angle and the dark of the night. 

“I’m fine,” he says, cursing the way his voice is all made up of splintered shards, the way it absolutely should not be. He tries again, “It’s fine.” 

“Shiro — ” 

“ _Please_.” 

But Adam doesn’t let go, and it’s only after they both fall silent that Shiro relaxes, inch by painstaking inch. It is a fight that Shiro is not part of, all the muscles and bones and flesh of his body trying to find a way to settle against the lingering phantom of — lights and snow. Thunder and lightning. _Voices_. 

“Voices?” Adam asks, and Shiro realizes with no small amount of shame that he’d said the last aloud. 

All he can say by way of explanation is, “I heard them.” 

“ — Who?” 

“I don’t — I don’t know.” 

Adam’s hand tightens on his arm. “It was just a nightmare.” 

Carefully, Shiro turns, enough so that he can see Adam’s face. “ — Yeah.” 

They stay still, looking at each other, then Adam’s tugging on Shiro’s arm and Shiro just follows it — allows Adam to guide them both back to the edge of the bed. And he might have said a moment ago that the bed was the last place he wanted to return to, with its burning hot sheets and the lightning tearing apart everything he’d ever known — 

The nonsensical edges of his dreams start to fade with every pulse, so long as Adam is holding on. Maybe that’s why Shiro says it, the second he starts to feel Adam pulling away. 

“ _Don’t go_.” 

Adam’s expression morphs into the same look he’d given all the Holts that had hugged him, and for a second Shiro is possessed by the singular, overwhelming, and entirely absurd desire to laugh. To touch Adam’s face and learn it by feel, what it’s like when he’s caught so off guard. But guilt is there, _always_ , so he quickly starts to amend what he’s asked. 

“I’m sorry, I — ”

“No. It’s fine.” Adam returns to holding Shiro’s arm with purpose, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a half smile. “Easier together, right?” 

“ — Right.” 

And they’ve had enough of hard, right? It’s okay to — to want it to be easy, isn’t it? 

Please, _please_ let it be okay. Because Shiro cannot bear the thought of separating right now. 

Another absurd thought comes to him: that tomorrow is the ballet. The ballet that Dr. Holt swears up and down is _always_ attended by the Princess of Altea and the Prince of the Empire. And it’s already tomorrow and won’t they both look a _mess_ after staying up so late. This time, the wild laughter doesn’t manage to say tucked behind Shiro’s ribs; it comes up through his sternum and shakes his throat and Adam cants his head with worry and curiosity he doesn’t disguise. 

Impulsively, Shiro asks, “Adam — who do you think I am?” And only after does he realize he means it. 

“I — ” Adam looks as caught as Shiro feels, which does nothing to quell the guilt in Shiro’s stomach. But he can live with that; he needs to hear Adam’s answer. “Well, Sam's already convinced, and I'm sure his highness will – ”

“But — who do _you_ think I am?”

“I — I _want_ to believe you’re the same young man I saw at the Palace.” 

— _What?_

“We — _met_ before? We knew each other?”

Something flickers across Adam's face, but Shiro reads it all the same: dark as a storm cloud that carries lightning and miserable sleet in it, helpless against its own sadness, its own acrid bitterness. It's only after he sees and feels the ache that passes so quickly across Adam's expression that Shiro realizes he would not have recognized it so easily months ago, could still probably not read Sam with the same ease. Adam carries them through the moment before Shiro can decide if anything must be done about it.

“I – wouldn't say we _knew_ each other, but –” He struggles, looks at Shiro then down at his hands, and then the decision seems to manifest in his body in an instant: tension replaced by determination, by soft-edged wistfulness that enraptures Shiro before he even says a word. “It was June. I was sixteen, so the prince would have been fifteen, then — ”

“ _Wait_.” 

Adam blinks over at him, and Shiro colors. But he _can’t_ let _that_ go. 

“You’re _older?_ ” 

“You’re — is that — is that _seriously what you’re asking me, right now?_ ” 

“This is news to me!” 

“Your _age?_ ” 

“I don’t _remember_ anything, Adam! How am I supposed to know how old I am?” 

“ — Does it _bother_ you?” 

Shiro huffs, looking down at his hand in his lap. “I just — thought we’d be the same age.” 

Even from his periphery, Shiro can see the wide grin that splits Adam’s lips. “You’re bothered! How could you not have guessed? I’m always right, after all.” 

“Oh, _please!_ ” But Shiro’s laughing again, as if he can actually breathe again — like the brackish, stormy water has been exhumed from his lungs and they can work properly once more. “Okay,” and that’s more focused. “It was June. You were sixteen.” 

“It was, and I was.” Adam settles back a little, moving to press his hand more comfortably against Shiro’s leg. Shiro draws closer. “The older the prince got, the more he was seen out in public. That summer, there was a parade as the family made their way from the Summer Palace to the Obsidian Palace. They were on the road for days, and I only saw them at the tail end.” 

“You — lived in the capitol city?” 

Adam nods gently, his hand still on Shiro’s leg but his gaze miles — maybe years — away. Shiro cannot look away. 

“My whole life. By the time the family reached the city, they must have been exhausted. It was hot, and the sun was high in the sky. It was one of those summer days when there aren’t any clouds and the carriages were open, so it’s not like they had any relief. But when they rounded the corner to the main square — honestly, they were a little hard to see. There must have been thousands in the city, then. I — suppose I wanted to see. I ducked through the crowd to get a better look, and the prince was right there, sitting straight, waving serenely to the crowd as if he hadn’t been doing that for days in the summer heat. As if he was happy to be there, among all the people of the Empire.” 

“Yeah?” Shiro doesn’t mean to interrupt, but it comes all the same — dizzy, awed, barely believing. Adam looks at him, then he’s grinning at him more in the present than before. 

“Yeah. I ran after the carriage for as long as I could, until I got to a place where I could stand away from the crowd. For a moment, I caught his eye and — he smiled.” 

So does Shiro, too, now. 

“You’re a good storyteller,” he says. “It’s almost like I was there myself.” 

“Well.” Adam rubs his thumb against the fabric of Shiro’s flannel pants. “Maybe you were. — Try telling it from you perspective.” 

Shiro snorts, despite himself. “Seriously?” 

“Come on, at least try.” 

“Bossy,” he teases, but he leans back a little, until his head can rest gently against the wall behind them. “Alright. So — it was June. I was fifteen.” 

“Correct, correct.” 

“Hush,” Shiro reaches over to poke Adam’s leg. “Let me paint my picture. It was hot — not a cloud in the sky. I must have been — no, I _was_ .” This is who he’s meant to be, right? And there’s no one here but Adam to see him fail if he does which — doesn’t seem so terrible a prospect. There’s no harm in trying a little confidence. “I _was_ tired. All that clothing, that regalia was heavy, and it had been days on the road. His — my brother wasn’t very happy about it all.” 

“I would imagine not,” Adam supplies. Shiro laughs. 

“But I — well, I suppose I had to look the part, didn’t I? Except it wasn’t all bad. Because there were so many people and I — wanted to see them all. Know them. They were — they were… my people. I had to… protect them. And that’s why I’d — want to know them.” 

Shiro does not notice that Adam has gone silent. 

“So I was waving to everyone when — a young man caught my eye. Darting through the crowd of people as quick as a dragonfly. I couldn’t look away, even though — I should have. Because a prince can’t be anything less than formal, right?” The joke he tries to lace in there falls short, lifted by an ancient breeze and tempered by the distance that drags Shiro away from the present. “But I just — didn’t look away. I watched for him, waited until I could see him emerge from the crowd. — I saw his eyes first. Like — amber, or honey. And I couldn’t help myself, because I — I’d _wanted_ to see him. So even though I tried not to smile, I smiled, and then he — ” 

Shiro’s heart threatens to burst open along all of its stitched together seams because that is the moment when the sensations that like to flash through his body or his mind finally ground themselves, stilling the lightning until he is no longer brushing past their ghosts but _seeing_ it, _feeling_ it entirely — 

“ — He _bowed_.” 

Silence, first, then Adam pushing himself off the bed, wild eyed and breathing heavily — confusion, alarm, accusation, wonder, all of it etched in the animated lines of his expression. “How did you — I never told _anyone_ that — ”

“You didn’t have to!” Shiro jumps off the bed to follow him, reaching out until Adam’s hand clumsily meets his own, their fingers lacing together. “I _remembered!_ ” 

Amber eyes, honeyed by the sunlight until it grew too bright and in the glare and the motion of the carriage, Adam was gone. 

Adam — _that’s_ who it was, the young man in the crowd, bowing ( _more coordinated now, less stiff than his father's still_ ) — and Shiro _should_ have sat still but all he wanted — 

“I wanted to find you, again,” he concludes breathlessly, and the whole world becomes Adam’s eyes and the warmth of his fingers — 

— Until it isn’t. Until Adam pulls back, expression entirely open but still, somehow, unreadable, and then he is sinking down faster than Shiro can stop him, faster than Shiro can process the ache, the burning, the joy, the shattering in his heart — 

Bowing his head, Adam breathes what he says next like a prayer: “Your Highness.” 

* * *

The Opera House sits like a diamond necklace in the darkening evening, lit up brightly against a sky rapidly turning to indigo. It is the center of the city tonight. Apparently the Altean ballet rarely fails to draw a crowd, both for its glowing reputation as one of the finest companies in the world, and Arus’ deeply shared history with Altea. Everyone entering the building is dressed in more jewels and sequins and shining cufflinks than Sam has seen since he was last part of the Empire’s court. 

There are far worse places to finish the journey he’d started what feels like a lifetime ago. 

And far worse places for his first night out with his wife in nearly a decade. 

“Colleen,” he says, looking at his wife with many lifetimes’ worth of adoration. “Have I told you yet how beautiful you look tonight?” 

“Only a few dozen times,” she replies with mock demure, tightening her hold on Sam’s elbow. “Though I could stand to hear it more.” 

“That’s very good to hear, as I had planned on making it to a hundred before the night is over.” 

“Acceptable.” And then she laughs like a hot summer breeze through sturdy ferns and Sam leans in to press his forehead against hers. 

This close, she finds her chance to press her lips against his cheek. Soon, he will fill out the places in himself that have gone too cavernous so that she won’t have to feel the hard years on his flesh. But for now, those hollows inside of him are full of pooling sunlight, and that is more than enough for now. 

He has too much to be thankful for to worry about the details. 

_Speaking_ of — 

“Tell me that this will work,” he sighs. Colleen rubs her thumb against his arm. 

“This will work.” 

“How can you be so sure?” 

“Because _you_ are, when you’re not worrying.” 

Well. How can he argue with that? Best to take his own advice and not miss his opportunity. He pats the back of Colleen’s hand with his other. 

“I’m glad to see you’re still the smarter between the two of us.” 

“Oh, dear.” She reaches up to brush her thumb against his cheek. “Of course I am.” 

Sam laughs full and clear and allows himself to settle. It’s all a bit much — why shouldn’t that be the case? The difference between Arus and the Republic should rightfully send anyone spiralling. But they are _ready_ for this. 

_Takashi_ is ready for this. He was always going to be. 

A black car pulls up in front of the theater, and Sam needs a moment to truly recognize Adam. Simonne’s clothing was impeccable, of course, but this suit — _well_. It’s no less than Adam deserves, to look the part of the gentleman he has always been. But it’s still worth noting how much good a change of clothes can do for one’s outlook. 

Sam beams at him. 

“Look at you! Fitting right in — that’s a very good look for you, My Boy.” 

When Adam finally makes his way halfway up the flight of stairs where Sam and Colleen have been waiting, he fidgets with his bowtie. It’s on the right way even if it’s not perfect, but Colleen immediately steps forward to take the project in hand and smooth it down for Adam. And as much as Sam expects Adam to find something else to fidget with, he does smile at her. 

“Thank you, Dr. Holt.” 

“Of course, Dear.” Pressing her palm once against Adam’s cheek, she then turns to kiss Sam’s before stepping away from the both of them. “I’m going to collect our tickets — I’ll meet you both inside in a moment?” 

“Absolutely.” Sam’s voice rings with unspoken gratitude, as does the look he shares with his wife before she departs. Even though he understands precisely what her aim is, even if the distance is extraordinarily temporary, he takes a moment to work through the nerves and worry that flare up in the pit of his stomach. 

But he has survived a very long time, and he’s well equipped for the aftershocks that come with a life like his. So it’s only a few seconds before he turns back to Adam. 

“All set for tonight, then?” 

“Of course.” Adam’s voice is tight as he fidgets with the button on his overcoat — Sam expects that, too, and he smiles indulgently. 

“Good. There’s nothing to worry about.” 

“I _know_ that. I — there isn’t?” 

“Of course not.” 

“I — right. Good.” It’s plain when Adam is putting together pieces, looking at some sort of puzzle that only he can see. Confusion still besets him when he looks up at Sam. “Why are you so sure of that?” 

Sam knows Adam a little better than allowing him to play stupid, though. 

“You’ve seen him,” Sam replies simply. 

“I have.” 

“Would you say that he’s not ready?” 

Sam has known Adam for a long while now, and as close as Adam wants to play most things to his chest, he won’t lie outright. Not at so direct a question, not when so much is at stake. But he’ll need time — a few moments to mulishly mull over what he could possibly say that would walk the thin line between admitting what is objectively true and still not placing his trust in something beyond his control. 

With thoughtful reservation, Adam replies, “I can’t say that.” 

No, he can’t. 

But it’s good to say it aloud. 

Sam nods kindly, hoping that Adam feels what he’s trying to convey — the surety, the confidence, the gratitude. All three of them are only here because they all came together, and it’s high time the labors of their efforts bear fruit. 

“Sam — ” 

The choked quality of Adam’s voice _does_ catch Sam off guard, though. 

“Yes?” 

“It’s not just that, I — ” 

Sam watches Adam curl his fingers reflexively into his palms, over and over, frowning — perhaps at the way his stiff, white gloves don’t bend so easily with the motion. He would never have survived this long without patience, but sudden curiosity burns brightly in Sam’s chest. 

“Yes?” 

“It’s — it’s _him_ , Sam.” 

“ — Shiro?” 

“He’s the prince. The lost prince — he’s _Takashi_.” 

“I should hope so — ” 

Adam’s hand is lightning quick as it shoots up, fingers curling desperately around Sam’s elbow. “It’s _really him_ . He remembered something that I — it’s _him_.” 

— Breath stilling in his lungs, Sam regards Adam with a kind of hope that glitters dangerously. He _remembered?_ All the time Sam spent wishing he would surges back to him, warms his face, dances in his eyes. 

“ — He remembered. Adam — this is _wonderful_ news.” 

Adam nods like a marionette that has suddenly found itself without strings. Then he looks away. 

“It is. It means he’ll get his family and we’ll get our reward and we can — go live our lives.” 

— Oh? 

Dropping his spectacles a little lower on his nose so that he might better take in Adam’s expression, Sam starts to ache at what he sees. The iron way his lips are locked together, the veil whispering over his eyes. 

No. This simply _will not_ do. 

Later, Sam will be angry with himself for forgetting — that Takashi might be absolutely ready, but perhaps Adam is not. For now, though, he steps closer, easing Adam’s hand from his elbow so that he might reciprocate the gesture. 

“Is that what you want?” 

Adam stares at him like Sam had struck him across the face, but it’s enough to drive away what had been haunting him a moment ago. He parts his lips as if to speak, but it takes him a few tries to find the words. 

“Is that — what does _that_ mean?” 

“That I believe you have a choice, here.” 

“A _choice?_ You can’t be serious — this was the _entire_ point of coming here, Sam. Con men and prince get their happily ever afters, right? The fairy tale gets its ending and everyone walks away a winner. There’s no _choice_ at all.” 

“Adam.” Sam waits until Adam meets his gaze, expression full of fight and focus. “You _always_ have a choice. And you’ve struggled a long, long time — you’re allowed to think about your happiness, too. Personally, I think it makes it easier that it’s all real. Lies can be tricky things to keep track of.” 

Realization dawns clear and cold across Adam’s face. He steps back, breaking their contact. 

“ — You knew.” 

Ah — well. If Adam isn’t going to lie outright here, Sam supposes he shouldn’t, either. 

Refusing to look away, he nods. “Not entirely, but I had my suspicions.” 

Adam swallows twice, curls his fingers against his palm. Desperate, he says, “ — The money…” 

“It’s up to you.” When Adam looks sharply up at him, Sam lifts both hands in the universal gesture of peace. “I’m sure I have no use for it.” 

Like a collapsing sail, Adam seems to fall into himself. There’s no fight to sustain him, probably, and Sam can’t blame him. The Republic’s hold on every citizen of the country was — _is_ — an iron vice. Freedom from the Galra meant little when the Garrison had simply stepped in to replace them. Even Sam staggers under the weight of what it means to be here, where everything is bright and warm and no one quite understands what it means to lose everything to a war that you never saw coming. He can only _imagine_ what it must be like for Adam, only truly living for the first time since he was a child. 

But he has never, not once, sought to hurt Adam. 

Stepping back towards him, careful to gauge permission by giving Adam enough time to refuse, Sam reaches out, brushes a hand against his arm, then slowly curls both around his back. Adam immediately stiffens, but Sam is determined that he will feel the endless affection and care that he’s held for Adam for years and years. 

“You _do_ deserve to be happy,” he murmurs fiercely. “I know it’s hard to believe, I know. But you do, and you need to understand that before you think about your future. Don’t answer.” Well timed — he can _feel_ the argument stirring up in Adam’s muscles. “Just think about it, okay?” 

Painstakingly, Adam reaches up to press his hand against Sam’s back. 

(He hopes that means he’s forgiven, too, and not only heard.) 

Breaking apart, Adam nods. “I’ll think about it.” 

“Think about what?” 

Goodness, he’s getting too old for this. Takashi’s voice catches him by surprise, but when Sam turns to greet him, he sees nothing but simple confusion in his gaze. Apparently, they had not been overheard. 

Adam stares at him for a few long moments, though, and Sam can’t blame him. Not only is their conversation still right there, at the surface, but — Takashi certainly looks the part he is meant to play tonight. Simonne, miracle worker, ought to win a prize for the boys’ outfits tonight. Adam cuts a clean figure in his black coat and tails, and Takashi looks every inch the prince in midnight blue and silver. 

Actually, they _both_ look a little red in the face. _Ah_ — to be young again. 

Sam waits and watches and eventually, Adam says, “Returning to Simonne for some new clothes. She did some — truly spectacular work with these.” Then, as Takashi starts to smile, Adam offers his elbow. Hesitating, Takashi reaches up and places his hand in the spot that its meant for. 

They are both smiling dazedly as they make their way to the Opera House’s front entrance. 

Alright, maybe this is a _little_ dangerous but — what’s meant to be is meant to be. 

And Sam’s kept his wife waiting long enough. 

* * *

The theater is probably very beautiful, with its crimson velvet fixings and burnished gold accents — the glittering chandeliers and everyone inside dressed to what must be their absolute best, sparkling enough to rival the jewels and crystals all around them. But Adam can’t seem to look anywhere but far enough ahead to make sure they get to their seats. 

The rest of his attention is on Shiro. 

Somehow, Simonne’s creation for him managed to bring out every feature that made Shiro, _Shiro_ — the white of his hair, the dark, glassy depths of his eyes, the cut of his strong jaw. In midnight blue and silver, he looks as if he belongs here — glittering and sure. Confident, but precious in the way that so many things in Arus are precious — like they might break with too much pain. 

Adam is well, well aware that Shiro will not break, but the desire to protect him regardless lives in the very hollows of his bones in a way he can’t, and won’t, deny. 

Shiro stays holding onto him as they move into their box, Sam and Colleen settling behind them. Only then does he let go, sitting straight but fidgeting with his program in his lap, curling and uncurling the edge of it. 

Softly, Adam takes his hand in his own, running his thumb across the backs of Shiro’s knuckles. 

“Relax,” he says, and even when he hears the honey smoothing over his voice, he doesn’t do anything to change it. 

His reward is Shiro looking back at him, startled at first, then his expression creasing in good humor and gratitude. He grips Adam’s hand back, but he doesn’t move to separate them. 

“Just like that, I’m cured.” 

Adam snorts a laugh. “Ass.” 

“I do try, yes.” 

He does, doesn’t he? Adam takes the opportunity to rub his thumb across Shiro’s hand again, settling them both on the chair’s arm between them. “A hard worker. At least you get a show, first.” 

Shiro hums in agreement, glancing at the dark stage, then back at Adam — spends a few second simply looking until Adam nearly ducks down in his seat. 

“Yes?” 

“ _Oh_ , I — ” Shiro reflexively moves to fidget with something — Adam feels it — but he stills in Adam’s grip. “I was just thinking that you were right.” 

“About?” 

“Simonne.” 

_Oh_. Heat collects along Adam’s cheekbones and dusts his ears, because Shiro is not motioning to himself; he’s staring openly, unreservedly at Adam, and Adam understands implicitly what Shiro means, but he’s not done talking. “You look incredible, you know.” 

“Well.” He looks away — at the stage, anywhere else. “I could say the same.” 

“Will you?” 

And Adam has to laugh, he _has_ to. “Perhaps.” 

Shiro laughs then, too, and their chuckles dim with the house lights. In front of them, the stage grows bright and the curtain rises. 

Adam will never, in his life, be able to tell anyone the plot of the ballet they watch that night. He holds no dislike of the arts — would happily sing the praises of those who work to create and perform it — but his entire world are the two seats beside each other: the plush, prickling velvet of the upholstery, the wood of the arms, and Shiro’s hand clutched in his. There is no room in him to think of anything but the way their palms feel pressed together — the warmth they create enough to burn through the fabric of their gloves, enough that Adam can feel it wrapping around his bones sinking into the only places on his hand that still have the audacity to be soft. And maybe even the places that don’t, as if this touch and this touch alone is enough to soothe the callouses and scars of years gone by — of a life that doesn’t feel as real as holding onto Shiro in a theater in a country on the other side of the only world he’s ever known, moments before Shiro is about to walk headfirst into his destiny. 

And Adam will — Adam will — 

_Think about it,_ Sam had asked of him, and how can Adam begrudge Sam anything, after what they’ve been through? After Sam had _saved him_. Over and over. From the world. From himself. 

The performance is a whirling windstorm of tulle and pointe work and costumes that catch the stage light to reflect it in brilliant prisms all over the theater. Adam glances at it all, sometimes, but he spends the time watching Shiro — watching Shiro watch the dancers, or the program in his lap, or Adam in turn. A few times Adam is quick enough to avert his gaze, but other times he is not (by design or chance he can’t say) and they look at each other, saying something that Adam thinks he might be able to translate if he were brave enough. 

In another world, maybe he would have. 

In this one, the curtain falls over the final bows and time is up. 

Sam and Colleen are waiting for them in the upstairs hallway that leads away from the mezzanine. The lights are lower here, more bronzy, throwing the gold embossing on the walls into sharp contrast. Shiro has his hand on Adam’s elbow, and Adam can’t remember if he offered when they left their seats but he’s glad that Shiro is holding on all the same. 

Colleen reacts first, meeting them halfway and reaching out first to smooth Adam’s bowtie once more, then to sweep back Shiro’s hair where some of it has started to fly away. Sam’s close on her heels. 

“Alright, we just need to wait for my old friend — ”

“ — _Samuel?_ ” 

“Or not!” 

Shiro doesn’t recognize the voice that calls for Sam, but from the way he lights Sam certainly does. Even Colleen perks up, tucking her hand back against Sam’s elbow and walking in step with him to meet the newcomer. 

A newcomer who certainly _looks_ the part of someone Sam will need to meet — all done up in the soft blues and whites that Adam knows are Altea’s colors. He holds himself well, too, and Adam feels Shiro stand a little straighter at his side. Reflexively, he covers Shiro’s hand with his own. 

“Coran! My friend, it’s good to see you!” 

Both Sam and the newcomer — Coran, apparently — nod respectfully — then catch each other in a jovial embrace. It’s so animated that it nearly startles a laugh right out of Adam, but Shiro’s hand is tight on his arm and that’s all it takes to keep him grounded in the moment — to know that he is needed here in a way that he would happily give himself to given any chance. 

“I had no idea you were — goodness! If I had, I’d’ve _done_ something — ”

“I know that.” Sam has a hand on Coran’s shoulder. “I couldn’t — so much of the court and the old guard had fled, or been purged I didn’t want to take the risk. And by the time I thought I could — well, wouldn’t you know that’s _precisely_ when they started closing the borders.” 

When Coran shakes his head, all his hair moves with the motion. “Outrageous. I’m so sorry for everything you must have endured.” 

“And I appreciate that,” Sam replies warmly. “But here we are — alive and well, and with someone I very much think you should meet.” 

Adam’s breath catches in his throat; his hand around Shiro’s tightens once, then releases. Everything in him is suddenly carved from implacable ice, and he can only imagine what Shiro must be feeling — but Shiro furtively knocks his elbow against Adam’s, straightens, and steps forward in time with Sam’s introduction. 

“Coran, I would like you to meet His Highness, Crown Prince Takashi Shirogane.” 

The whole world holds its breath. 

Coran’s gaze is wide, nearly alarmed, and he does not disguise the way he looks Shiro up and down, up and down. Adam’s palms shake, but Shiro stands tall. And maybe he’s gotten a little used to it after all, or he’s just that good, because the moment Coran sinks down to take a knee, Shiro is already in motion, reaching out to ghost his fingers against the back of Coran’s hand. 

“Your Highness,” Coran breathes, and Shiro’s reply dovetails neatly just after. 

“It’s alright, there’s no need.” 

Just like that, Adam in his body again. Moving forward, brushing his fingers against Shiro’s back he murmurs, “We’ll celebrate after.” 

The smile Shiro gives him is something that Adam tries desperately to memorize in the passing second he sees it — terrified, a little, but brimming with a kind of hope that bleeds ambrosia. 

And then he is gone, and Adam is left to wait. 

Which would, theoretically, be a great time to work on his promise and think things over, but Sam is _right there_ and Shiro is _right inside_ the private balcony box where the prince is, and he is sure that there is no way to get his mind working enough to give any serious thought to a matter so important as the rest of his life. 

“I think we’ve earned that drink,” Sam says idly as Adam paces the hallway, and Adam manages a brief, ghosting chuckle. 

“ — The insolence of youth, was it?” 

“Precisely.” 

It makes very little sense, to long for the bitter cold of the Republic and the batons of the MPs colliding with his aching ribs until they decided he’d learned his lesson — to think fondly of the remains of the Obsidian Palace, with watery daylight and sleet dripping in through the patchy roof and its wailing gate. But he remembers the feeling of knowing what every next step was, what dangers to avoid and how to get around them, and Adam cannot bring himself to regret the life he’d live the past nine years. 

He cannot bring himself to say that it wasn’t a life — because it was threadbare but it was _his_ and he knew what to do with it. 

More than he knows what to do with this waiting. 

He’s just about worn a hole in the plush carpeting when voices return — Coran’s, if he’s not mistaken, muffled behind the walls and drapes separating the box from the hall. Then it falls away and all that are left are footsteps growing louder — 

— Shiro forces his way through the curtained off corridor and — straight past Adam, heading for the stairs at the other end of the hallway. Instinctively, Adam reaches out to hold onto Shiro’s elbow, but Shiro violently pulls his arm entirely out of Adam’s grasp. 

“What happened — ” 

“He wouldn’t even _look_ at me.” Shiro’s back is turned to him, but every word is clear and sharp as steel. “ _Enough, Coran. You told me to take a break from these impostors after my money. Why would you do this to me now?_ ” 

No — no, _no_ — 

“Shiro I — ” This isn’t — it _can’t_ happen this way, it _shouldn’t_ , Shiro is — fire and ice sit perfectly balanced behind Adam’s ribs, ravaging them. “I’ll tell him the truth, that — ” 

“That I was just some — actor? Some _pawn_ in a _scheme_ to get out of the Republic?” Shiro’s voice rips through Adam — his soft parts, his scarred over ones. When he turns, his iron fletched, irate gaze might just do Adam in entirely. “That you told me to imagine myself as this — this person that I wasn’t? That I couldn’t be? That even when it felt like I could **_never_ ** be this grand prince saving lives and ruling a court, you told me to believe? And none of it was true and we’d just wind up hurting some innocent kid? — I was a lot of things when I met you, Adam. I was cold and sick and tired, but I always, _always_ tried to do right. I've spent my entire life trying to not hurt anyone as I survived, and now – I _hate_ what I've become.”

There is absolutely nothing Adam can do but watch as Shiro turns back away from him and tears down the hallway, disappearing around a curve and probably halfway down the stairs by the time Sam and Colleen rouse themselves from their stricken reverie and chase after him. There is _nothing_ Adam can do except — 

— He whirls on his heel just as Coran emerges, followed by two teenagers. And he starts to speak, probably some diplomatic apology, but Adam is made of rusted steel and biting winter cold and he only has eyes for the young man that can only be the prince that has just rejected Shiro out of hand. 

“Your _highness_ — ” He hisses, and the young man startles into a furious grimace. 

“ _Hey_ , what the — ”

“How _dare_ you!” 

All present company is momentarily stunned into silence — but only momentarily. The young woman is wide eyed but her posture rings with iron command, and the young man is made of fire, rising up to the challenge fletched in Adam’s voice. 

“Who the hell even — ” 

“He doesn’t _want_ your money! I take full responsibility for — ” 

Coran makes to touch Adam’s elbow but he jerks away. “Sir, you _must_ calm down — ” 

“He lost _everything!_ ” Adam barks. “His home, his _life_ — he spent _nine years_ trying to survive, trying to return to the only family he has — all for that family to reject him!” 

“ _You_ don’t get to talk about _my_ family!” The prince is younger than him, and shorter, but in his fury he is tall enough to meet Adam’s gaze head on, without once flinching. Adam is struck with a fleeting thought passing strange that he might be burned if the prince comes any closer, but it wouldn’t matter even if it weren’t fantasy, if it were true, because this is too important. 

The prince’s face is drawn up in a mask of rolling, imperious rage. “I _lived_ that. Takashi _lived_ that. That is my family, and you have _no idea_ what you’re talking about. You have _no idea_ what it’s like to be ripped away from everyone you know in one night, to know that they’re dead and they’re _never_ coming, _never_ . You have _no idea_ what it’s like to be told every day that what you’re fighting for doesn’t exist but you can’t stop fighting because then you’re letting your brother and your best friend just — _be dead!_ And you — you — you have _no idea_ how to speak to royalty!” 

The prince breathes heavily. Adam breathes heavily. 

Coran’s hand makes contact with Adam’s shoulder and this time, Adam allows himself to be gently guided away. 

* * *

“You were playing with lives — _real lives_ . My life, that prince’s life — I can’t _believe_ you would do that!” 

If Shiro yells, then his voice won’t shake. If he yells, then he can take up all the space in the room that might have been given to Adam’s voice, his reply, his — whatever he might come up with. An apology? An explanation? But Shiro doesn’t need either of those things. What he needs is to pack his things from the hotel room as quickly as possible, and he can’t do that if his voice is shaking or his hand is shaking. 

“Telling me I was some lost prince — honestly, what’s worse is how _stupid_ I was. Letting myself _believe_ that you could ever be telling the truth — that it was _fine_ to pretend. Stepping into someone else’s life, taking over their spot in a _grieving_ family!” 

“Shiro — ” 

“I _never_ hurt someone like this, _never_. Years on the road, doing whatever I could to get by — I never stole. Not once. I never threatened someone to get what I needed — I never made a promise I couldn’t keep. And in one night, I made that boy suffer after losing his family!” 

“ — Where are you _going?_ ” 

Shiro shoves Simonne’s gifts into his suitcase, on top of the few toiletries and snacks he's accumulated over the past few days. None of it is enough to fill the luggage even close to full and there’s some bitter laugh about that lodged somewhere in his throat. But it comes out like broken leaves on shattered pavement. 

“Anywhere but here. — What is this?” He holds up a scarf accusingly. 

Adam glances helplessly at Sam, then says, “I got it for you — ” 

That’s all he needs to know. He throws it, hopes it smacks Adam right in the face but he’s already turned back to his packing before he can see. Whatever — _whatever_. 

“And to make up some — some _scheme_ to take his money! After he lost his family, a whole lifetime! I never thought you cruel, but I suppose I wrong about a lot of things, wasn’t I?” 

“Shiro — ” That’s not Adam’s voice. That’s Sam. That’s Sam and Shiro whirls around to meet him, seeing red. 

Jabbing a finger solidly into Sam’s chest, Shiro grinds out, “And you! You _have_ a family — and you went along with something like this? Knowing how it would _feel_ if _you_ were the one tricked? I _trusted_ you!” 

It’s too much — if he looks at them, either of them with their bloodless, stricken faces so gaunt it’s almost like they’re back under the oppressive grey of the Republic’s sky, he will be lost. And maybe he deserves to be there, still — away from the people he has hurt. 

Away from the people that — that _hurt him_. 

What a fool. What a selfish, self-centered, monstrous _fool_ he is. 

“And here I come along, _tormenting_ this boy with a fantasy I was stupid enough to believe in! After all he’s suffered! — God, you must have thought I was stupid, didn’t you? Some willing idiot who would gladly fall into the ruse of a fairy tale. — At least you were right about that. I _was_ an idiot. I was naive enough to believe that I could trust something so — so _ridiculous_ as the lost prince! I won’t be used again. Not by you. Not for something like this.” His fingers brush against the book — the photographs of the family he’d come so, _so_ close to remembering — falsely, apparently. The family he’d tried to see himself in over and over and over again, for months. In his dreams. In his waking hours. His grip tightens around it and he yanks it from the suitcase. “I _admired_ you, that’s the worst part. I thought you were so — _brave_ and _strong_ for never giving up, for surviving in the Republic all those years. I _wanted_ to be the man you said I could be! I wanted to be better! Well you can take your book and your history and save it for your _next_ pretend prince — !” 

Shiro is struck with the sensation of missing a step on the way down when he turns and he sees neither Adam nor Sam behind him, but the young prince in question. 

— **_?_ **

— **_!_ **

_Oh_ — **_!_ **

Before Shiro can process what he is sweeping into a deep bow, letting the book drop to the floor with a muffled thud. 

“Your Highness — ” 

“Let’s get this over with.” 

There is anger in the young prince’s voice, no mistaking it. But it’s not entirely anger; Shiro knows it immediately and intimately even if won’t dare presume to empathize with it — because that exhaustion… the prince has earned that exhaustion. 

He picks himself up inch by inch, ready to softly tell the prince that it’s fine to leave, to leave all of this, that he’s _sorry_ (can you tell royalty that?) — but then curiosity wings into existence and instead what leaves Shiro’s mouth is, “Over with?” Then, hurried, “ — sorry.” 

The prince glares at him, then moves to sit heavily on the settee in the middle of the room. “Do you really not know how all of this works? That you claim to be him, I ask you questions, and we do that until you get something wrong?” 

Fire lashes against the backs of Shiro’s ribs threatening to reduce them to ash. But even that would not be enough space for his swelling, aching heart when he hears the exhaustion grow more and more pronounced in the young prince’s voice with every single word. 

“I'm so sorry, your highness. I didn't know — ”

“What? That you were coming here to pose as my brother?”

“No, I — ”

“That you were just one of the many stepping into his shoes? That I've seen more liars in my lifetime than anyone else ever has?”

“ _No_ , I didn't.”

“You must think I'm _stupid_ , right? That I'll just — believe anything, and keep on believing, like some little kid!”

“Aren't you?” The heat in Shiro's voice catches him off guard, like stumbling on something lost and long forgotten and then found, even if it shouldn't be that way in the moment. The prince looks at him with wide, wild eyes that flicker open so vulnerable that something Shiro can't name in his chest trembles with it. Then guts into hard frustration when the prince's face collapses in — in — he should say _anger_ but the word that comes to Shiro is _stubbornness_.

And it awakens something in Shiro that he never saw coming, that takes him over entirely. 

As if this is a challenge that he cannot fail to rise to. 

“You're calling me _stupid_?”

All thought of the grief that this family must have suffered, all knowledge of the young man's title, of the grandeur of this hotel and this city — none of it stays with Shiro, and he finds himself speaking without any thought at all. “I'm calling you _young_.”

The young prince, Keith, says nothing. His lips are parted silently, disbelieving eyes wide and fixed on Shiro. And it _should_ be enough, shouldn't it? The Empire doesn't exist anymore – Shiro cannot remember it ever existing — but he is still surrounded by more finery than he thinks he's ever seen in his life. He's still in the city beyond his wildest dreams staring down a prince regardless of the fact that princes are the things of fairy tales. And all of that, _it should be enough_ , enough to render him embarrassed at his outburst. Enough to make him shy, enough to make him _worry_. That he has insulted a prince, or that he has insulted someone grieving a terrible, unimaginable loss. Or simply someone who belongs to a world of precious, breakable things like all the crystal and glass around them. 

Except — Keith doesn’t look breakable. He looks like he’s been fighting for a long time, and he’s still fighting. 

So Shiro raises an eyebrow. 

Expressions flicker across Keith's face, too fast to understand, particularly on a stranger, but Shiro instinctively tells himself that they are shock and frustration and stubbornness and hope that won't die, and it's so strange to know them that it winds up feeling — not strange at all. 

Meeting his gaze the entire time, the prince starts to ask, almost by rote, “Where was Prince Takashi — ”

Again Shiro surprises himself when he hears himself ask, “Do we have to get this over with?” 

“ — _What?_ ” 

He _should_ back down, he _should_ . Not only because he is speaking with royalty, but because he’s cost this young man so much suffering already for one night, and does he really need to prolong the agony? But then — then he _looks_ at the prince’s face and he is overcome with that sensation of knowing precisely what and whom he is looking at — the same that he’d felt when he’d let himself imagine Adam bowing — 

“Do we need to?” Shiro realizes then that he’d never taken a seat, and moves to perch on the opposite end of the settee, never losing the prince’s gaze. Neither of them seem willing to break it, apparently, and it’s enough to fuel this new _thing_ in Shiro that finds a challenge and doesn’t let go. “Haven’t you already made up your mind?” 

“ _Excuse_ me?” 

“You say that everyone gets something wrong eventually but if they came here with a purpose, I can’t imagine they didn’t study.” 

“ — So?” 

“So, it can’t be the facts that they get wrong.” 

“ — Are you serious.” 

“I am.” 

The prince sighs sharply, crossing his arms against his chest. Then, even more tired, he asks, “Why did you even come here, then? If you weren’t in on the whole thing?” 

Perhaps Shiro imagines it, or maybe he doesn’t. But he swears there’s something earnest in there, like the prince really wants to know. He curls his hand against his knee, lips pursed and brow furrowed. 

“I wasn’t. I just — had to get here. I don’t know why.” 

“You don’t?” 

“I don’t remember. Anything, really. Not from before I woke up in a Republic hospital a few months after the siege was quelled.” 

“How convenient,” the prince snorts, and stubbornness shoots through Shiro. 

Enough that he snaps, “It _wasn’t_ .” Then regrets it when the prince looks at him with wide, startled eyes. “ — It wasn’t.” This is softer. “I had no idea where I was — _who_ I was. The only clue I had were these — shadows in my dreams. And a pendant.” 

“A pendant?” 

“The only thing I had from — before I can remember. A pendant that says Arus.” 

Beside him, the prince goes very still. 

So does Shiro. 

“The pendant…” Always, _always_ the shadows have been just out of reach — echoes of things he can’t see when he’s waking and can’t remember when he’s dreaming. But now one comes to him, curling around his fingers, smokey and winking with lights that if only Shiro could understand their language he’d _understand_ — still staring at the prince, he hums that song, the one that came to him on the bridge with Adam. 

The prince’s eyes widen more. “That’s — ” 

“The _pendant_ .” It comes back to that — it _has_ to come back to that. Because that’s important. It’s always been important — important enough for someone to risk their life over, important enough that he _remembered something_ that evening, on the bridge. That pendant goes with — 

“The music box,” he murmurs to himself, dreamily and divorced — then in a rush of desperation he repeats, “The _music box_ . It was from a _music box_ , I — ” Shiro draws a hand up to his shirt, then his neck, rough fingers grabbing shakily at the little silver chain hidden under his collar. Half in wonder, Shiro pulls up on the chain until it reveals its pendant: circular, blue enamel and gold veins, etched with a single word. With his hand still shaking, its reflective edges catch the light over and over, glimmering with stubborn determination.

Shiro looks down at it, then up. Keith is already looking at him. Shiro speaks slowly, as if rushing through his slowly untangling thoughts will shatter something he cannot see but might, if he is patient, _finally_ understand. “I'd sing, sometimes. This melody that I couldn't remember where it was from. In my dreams, the notes were high — they came from a music box. This — _goes with_ a music box.” 

“My music box,” Keith says — just as hesitant and dreamy and rushed. “My music box, our — ”

 _Our lullaby!_

“ _Our lullaby_.” They say it together, in unison. When Shiro’s hand shakes this time, he doesn’t stop it. 

The voice from his dreams and his scattered edges of memories, from that evening — _Keith’s voice_. 

“Keith — ” Shiro’s voice cracks through and Keith edges carefully, determinedly closer. 

“The last thing you said to me — what was it?” Hope crackles delicately through Keith’s tone as if it’s some inlaid, fragile china vase. 

“I — ” Lightning — not lightning. Never lightning. It had been gunfire. Rattling the walls — someone holding onto one hand, Shiro holding onto Keith with his other — “I said — we’re going.” 

“ _No_ .” But it’s not angry, not at all. Keith _blooms_ with hope, inching ever closer, dark eyes bright and glassy and utterly, stubbornly clear. “Think — after we left. We were almost at the train. We were separated and you said — ” 

“ _I’ll find you again_. I promise.” 

Through the sleet, some soldier grabbing onto his wrist hard enough that Shiro had felt it snap — but still burning through the night with the promise that he’d come back — he’d come back _to his brother_. 

“ _Keith_ — ” 

The night shatters around them. Keith throws himself forward, wrapping both arms around Shiro and pulling him forward. Without thinking, Shiro wraps his arm around Keith — _his_ Keith, _his brother_ , how could he _ever_ have forgotten? — and buries his face in the crook of his neck. 

“I’m sorry,” he breathes wetly. “I’m so sorry — I didn’t keep my promise, I’m sorry — ” 

“You did,” Keith replies fiercely, holding on tighter. “You’re here. You found me.” 

For the first time in nine years, Shiro cries. 

* * *

Things begin to come back, but not all at once. 

At least those creeping shadows and distant lights are real — they’re things more flesh and bone than the pearly ghosts flickering at the edges of his dreams. He'll touch a windowpane and suddenly realize he's tracing a pattern against the early spring frost that they had drawn together as children: a bell, a horse, a great, large cat. Swirling vines of ivy carved out in the morning ice. 

Some of it is harder. He wakes one night hoarse from yelling for his mother, and he finds that he remembers her name and her face now, but only because he’d seen it illuminated by the light of gunfire through the bars of a prison cell. He searches for his Grandmother’s hand on his shoulder or her presence in a sitting room only to remember that she is not there. Father’s words come back, disjointed and out of place, sometimes advice, sometimes praise, sometimes gentle admonishments. 

There are moments in the sunshine where he can hear the echo of Keith’s laughter through the Spring gardens, and ones where Coran reaches out to tap his arm and Shiro startles back into reality expecting a soldier or a mugger at his back. 

But Keith is there, constantly, and he meets it all with faith like fire burning in his eyes, like a lifeline in his hands when they grab onto Shiro's and don't let go. It's enough to melt the edges of his indecision creeping like frost, to burn away the shroud of self doubt, self recrimination. If he doesn't know yet how to be Takashi Shirogane it's alright; he at least knows how to be this: here, with Keith. Here, with his family. And he knows, in the truest way, that this is real, because the way he aches with the desire to never leave his brother's side, to protect him and give him everything he has, is more real than most things he's experienced in the lifetime that he remembers.

More real than most, but perhaps not all. 

Because there are things he doesn’t think about. 

Which is — fine. He has plenty to occupy himself with. He meets Coran again, and Princess Allura properly, and neither of them look at him with suspicion, and easily replace his title with the name he’s been using for the last decade. Shiro can’t make himself believe that he’s earned their trust, but he is grateful for it, and for their company, too. Coran is so knowing and quick and sure, and Allura is so steady and warmhearted and passionate, and Shiro finds speaking with them at length entirely pleasant. 

He is _grateful_ to them, how they’ve made a home for Keith so far from everything everyone knew, but when he tries to express that, they both wave him off. 

“This is only what’s right,” Allura says firmly, as if that’s the last thing anyone needs to say about the matter. Shiro allows it, but only because he knows he will be grateful all his days and one of them, he will find a way to tell them that will broker no argument. 

The other matters at hand, though, are more tangible. 

Just — no more easy to deal with. 

Apparently, when the rightful heir to a throne miraculously reappears, there’s paperwork involved. And decisions to be made. And someone named Count Harper who will become a problem if Shiro doesn’t deal with whatever it is he’s asking. 

The most pressing issue, though, is the claiming of his title. 

Coran’s study is homey and lived in — organized but warm, and Shiro is grateful that at least they have a place this nice to have this conversation. 

“This is a different situation than Altea — or Daibazal, really,” Coran says. There are papers between them, but Coran explains things far better than any document maps them out, and Shiro listens with rapt attention despite the fact that there’s a part of him that feels trained to think over problems like this, and another part that shirks from the idea of being responsible for more than himself. “The Empire is gone, technically, but it’s not _destroyed_. And there are many possibilities for how this might play out.” 

“What do you think is most likely?” 

“Well — I suppose that depends almost entirely on you, Shiro.” 

Not a shock, but Shiro wants to curl in on himself all the same. “If I claim my title publically — would it put Arusia in danger?” 

“I can’t say for sure. Truly!” Perhaps Coran noticed the dubious look cross Shiro’s face. “I can’t imagine that if you formally relinquish any claim to the Republic as a governing body, that they’d have a reason to attack. Unprovoked aggression is never a good look — particularly on such a staunch ally.” 

It’s smart. Shiro remembers, with a little chill, the steel in Iverson’s voice, back in his office. Back when he was sure he was about to be quietly secreted off to some prison to rot there, or die. The Garrison is nothing if not calculated, and waging war against a retired former-prince of a nation that doesn’t exist anymore isn’t smart. 

_But_. 

_This world must be preserved. I will be the one who preserves it. By any means necessary._

Shiro still believes him. 

And he can only imagine what rebellions might erupt at the news of the lost prince, finally returned. How many people will make themselves targets of the Military Police because their hope has come back to life. 

_They’re suffering — for him —_

Coran’s hand presses gently against the back of Shiro’s, and it’s enough to draw him from his flashback. Shiro offers him a weak but grateful smile, then his expression collapses into something more contemplative. 

“What if I — didn’t.” 

“Didn’t?” 

“Didn’t relinquish my claim to the Republic.” 

“Well.” Coran pats the back of his hand, then leans back in his chair. “That’s certainly another way you can go. And I certainly can’t know how that would go.” 

“I once promised my family and the Empire’s court that I would be the nation’s shield, and protect it all my days. I remember that now, and I don’t want to forget it again.” 

The stubborn set of Shiro’s jaw wavers when Coran’s eyes crease kindly and leans forward again. 

“That’s brave of you, Shiro.” 

“It’s — ” 

“It is. And I am — so very proud of you. But you don’t have to make this decision yet.” 

“I — don’t?” 

“No.” Coran reaches out, and Shiro takes his hand. “You have been very courageous, and very strong for a long time. You have more than earned a break and a chance to start healing. Once you have, all of this will be waiting for you. I will help — you won’t do this alone.” 

Maybe one day Shiro will stop shattering with every revelation. For now he draws a wet, shaky breath, thanks Coran, and excuses himself. 

The rest of the afternoon, as with all the others, he spends with Keith. They have lunch, take a walk outside, then hole up in the library until dinner. 

And argue. Good naturedly. 

“What about your man?” Keith says, with a silly inflection on the last word. “Your knight in shining tux?” 

Shiro makes a face, but it’s more bitter and less teasing. “He’s not — he’s not my anything.” 

“Ugh, hardheaded.” 

“Wonder who you take after.” 

Keith shoves his knee into Shiro’s, and Shiro bats half heartedly at Keith’s elbow. “I’m not _stupid_ , Takashi. I get why you hang around here all the time. And I’m glad — ” 

“I’m not leaving you again.” 

“I _know_ , I know.” Keith reaches out, this time to take Shiro’s hand in his own. “I trust you.” (Shiro melts a little with that.) “But you can be happier. Could be, with him — right?” 

“Keith — ” Shiro sighs, rubbing his thumb across Keith’s knuckles. “Look, it doesn’t even matter. He’s probably halfway across the country by now.” 

“ — What?” 

“You know what he was here for.” 

“Are you serious? _How_ are you still this stupid?”

“Keith.”

“Nine years, Takashi, and you didn't get any smarter.”

“ _Keith_.”

“He didn't take the money.” 

— Shiro freezes. 

“He — ” 

“He didn’t take the money. He said he just wanted to get you back home.” 

There aren’t many things that Shiro hadn’t been thinking about — there had just been the one, really. But that one thing springs to life with such fervor and vibrancy that it feels like — it feels like _everything_. Adam hadn’t — he hadn’t — 

(It’s hope and guilt and terror and exhilaration and — ) 

Keith’s hand finds its way to Shiro’s hair, ruffling it. “Go. Just make sure you come back after.” 

Launching forward, Shiro wraps his arm around Keith’s shoulders. 

“I promise.” 

* * *

Adam really should have expected that he’d be facing down the barrel of a gun again. He just figured it’d be somewhere besides Arus. 

And he really would have preferred it to be someone other than the Admiral’s attack dog, but then, life has never seemed to care about what he wants. 

“You know where he is,” Iverson says. Adam stands tall, his jaw squared off, his gaze impassive. “We are good and loyal citizens of the Republic. You can have your life back, and ensure the safety of our nation.” 

“Forgive me if I doubt you, Commander.” 

Iverson handles his weapon with all the steady care of someone who has trained his whole life with it. And he probably has — he has probably been working with Garrison military from when it was still a faction of the Empire. 

How _absurd_ it all is. This Garrison trained commander threatening a con man at gunpoint in a plush hotel room in the heart of Arus. Like some surreal black and white drawing superimposing itself over a riot of color, a knife embedded in a crystal flower pot. 

Briefly, bitterly, Adam thinks that it’s at least poetic that he’ll die for love. 

(It sounds better than dying for stupidity.) 

“Is this the good that the Republic wants?” 

( — But it doesn’t sound as good as that voice.) 

From over Iverson’s shoulder, Shiro cuts an imposing figure — perfectly at ease in the doorway, as if he is conversing with some diplomatic and not a Garrison officer out to clean up loose ends with a bullet. Adam’s eyes widen and his mouth is suddenly dry, and he doesn’t know what he’d say ( _run_ or _help_ or _save yourself_ ) but he can’t say anything and Shiro is already moving into the room. 

Iverson already has his gun trained on him. 

Not like this — _not like this_ — 

“There you are.” It sounds wrong — something you’d say to an old, lost friend, coming out so steely and imposing in Iverson’s timbre. 

“Here I am. Took a little digging to find the location. But I’m good at being stubborn.” 

“Hasn’t this gone on long enough?” Iverson moves toward Shiro, and Adam wonders if tackling him to the ground will get them both killed. But even if he could decide, he is rendered still and silent by Shiro’s — by his look, his voice, his presence. “Aren’t you tired of this fairy tale?” 

“We both know that’s not true. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here to finish this.” 

“I do what’s _necessary_. For the good of the Republic, for the good of a nation that has suffered under a soft rule.” 

“Then _finish_ this.” Shiro closes the distance between them, point blank range. “If you believe that spilling my blood — _our_ blood — will save your Republic, pull the trigger.” 

“Just — ” Somehow, by some intervention, Iverson’s hand shakes around the handle of his pistol. “Just — say who you are. Say _who you are_ and we can end this without violence.” 

Adam doesn’t know what to hope for — doesn’t know what to do except to look to Shiro. 

Shiro, who draws himself up to his full height. 

Shiro, who says, “I am the Crown Prince of the Empire, Takashi Shirogane. I won’t ever forget that again.” 

Iverson makes a wounded noise. He aims his pistol, and even if it shakes, at this range there is no chance that he will miss. 

_Not like this_ — 

Then, like a dream, Iverson lowers his gun. 

— Not like this? 

“I — ” Defeat sweeps through Iverson’s voice like broken leaves. “ — I believe that you are who you say you are. And that I’ve damned myself and my country either way. But — ” He moves as if he’s going to walk past Shiro, stilling just for a moment at his side. “ — I believe in your idea of goodness. — Long life, Your Highness.” 

Shiro nods his head with every ounce of grace. “Commander.” 

And then he is gone. 

And then it is only them: Adam and Shiro. 

Anger, helplessness, hope — all of it roils in the crucible of Adam’s stomach. He locks his jaw, eyes bright. “ — What in the _hell_ was that?” 

“Something stupid,” Shiro says around a desperate, hysterical laugh. His regal posture collapses into itself and he braces his hand against his chest. The smile at his lips is wide and wild. “I can’t believe that _worked_.” 

“That wasn’t — you didn’t have a _plan?_ ” 

“I wasn’t expecting to find him here!” 

“You could have _died! We_ could have died!” 

“And I’m very glad we didn’t.” 

God — god! It’s like nothing will tear the ebullience from Shiro’s face. And god! It’s starting to live behind Adam’s ribs too, infectious and brighter than the bitterness and guilt and shame and indignation and worry and — and everything else he’s been living. 

He turns on his heel. 

“You didn’t have to do that.” 

“I think I did.” 

“ — We don’t have to do this.” 

“I think we do.” 

Shiro is close now; Adam can feel his warmth. 

Not like this. 

_Not like this._

“I don’t — I don’t _want_ to do this.” 

“ — Are you sure?” That, at least, is softer — less sure of himself. Maybe that’s what Adam wanted a second ago, but it guts all the same to hear the confidence in Shiro’s voice waver. 

Enough that some of the walls around his heart crack, all the way down to their stony foundations. 

“I can't be in love with someone I can't have!”

Silence — a heartbeat, and another. Quiet breathing. Then: 

“What about Shiro, then? Can you love just Shiro?”

“But you _aren't_ just Shiro, Your H–”

“ _Adam_.”

Adam turns. Shiro’s hand is up, palm out, an undeniable invitation. Adam looks at it, looks up at Shiro's expression and sees so much more than the boy of thirteen trying to look every inch the emperor he thought he would one day be, or the indefatigable fifteen year old. More than the man who had come to him hungry and cold and looking for something he couldn't remember much less find. Nothing comes easy, nothing but trouble, and yet it is simpler than breathing to reach out, past the memories of long, hard nights, past the fear of heartbreak when this dream vanishes like so much snow after the winter, and take Shiro's hands into his own.

He is not wrong; he's sure of it. There is no _just Shiro_ anymore. But perhaps there is no _just Adam_ anymore either. Perhaps they have both been made into something new.

His hold tightens and as his world narrows to the sensation of their joined hands and Shiro's expression, caught halfway between terror and hope, he murmurs, “Takashi.”

And that is all it takes. Shiro, _Takashi_ , bridges the distance between them, pressing Adam's hands to his chest as he seeks out his lips with his own, dovetailing them together. A breath, another, then Adam is releasing his hold only to press his hand against the curve of Takashi's jaw, his other arm around his waist. Takashi does the same, curling an arm around him, holding him close enough that Adam can no longer distinguish one heartbeat from another. 

Then Takashi pulls back, only enough to press his forehead against Adam’s. 

“Is it alright if I love you?” 

Wet eyed, labored and breathless, Adam laughs. “Yes — yes, that’s alright.” 

“Thank _god_.” Takashi dovetails their lips once more, burning through the kiss. “Because I couldn’t stop if I tried.” 

Adam runs his trembling thumb across the bold line of Takashi’s jaw, marveling at its closeness — its strength, its softness. Then the tears finally breach his lower lashes and wash against the line of his cheek. Takashi shifts his hold the moment they come, running his knuckles against the wetness he finds, delicately ghosting his forefinger against the corner of Adam’s eye like it is something infinitely precious. 

How strange, that Adam wants to shatter for its softness. 

“Adam,” Takashi breathes, “What — ” 

Adam kisses him once more, fierce and decisive, then murmurs against his lips. “I just don’t want this to end.” 

Takashi’s laugh is like a dream of bells, rich and full, sweet and resonating in Adam’s bones. 

“It won’t. I promise.” 

* * *

Morning light falls dappled and honeysoft through the blinds of their bedroom window. Takashi blinks gently awake with it, eyelids at half mast, gaze casting around. It’s the same as they left it last night — plants on the side table, a few shirts folded on the chair in the corner. Outside, Arus seems to be waking up, with a distant rumble of cars and the voices of vendors and pedestrians mingling with faraway church bells. 

Beside him, Adam is curled up in sleep, his face still pressed against Takashi’s shoulder. 

They have meetings today, probably. Takashi is not inclined to search out his calendar right now, but he’s sure they have something, since they always have something. Maybe lunch with Keith and Sam, maybe some documents that they must pore over before whatever time sensitive deadline passes. 

That will come, in its time. Now, Takashi turns — just enough that he can feel the soft fall of Adam’s hair brushing just so against his cheek every time breathes. Enough that he can trace the line of Adam’s nose and his cheek with his eyes, memorizing their curve and how they glow in the faint dawning of morning. 

And then he closes his eyes, falling back asleep against Adam, right where he belongs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy hanukkah / christmas / kwanzaa / solstice ya filthy animals. your present is this monster of an unedited second act, and your presents to me are your COMMENTS. 
> 
> honestly, to anyone who enjoyed this self indulgent, wild ride, thank you so, so much. i loved writing this, and i love sharing it. i'll probably edit this more over this week, but i really wanted to share it today. 
> 
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/matsuokis/playlist/1M3WinGkwJ3CEmMD8JGSXe?si=8ESC_da7REKaxGBgUClcAw)
> 
> [@disasterganes](http://disasterganes.tumblr.com) on tumblr

**Author's Note:**

> i was going to either post this when i finished the second half or december first hit - so! happy once upon a december! for maximum impact, imagine the first waltz scene scored to that dramatic version of edelweiss when maria runs out on the von trapps. 
> 
> also, comment. (clap emoji, knife emoji.) 
> 
> playlist: ( [xo](https://open.spotify.com/user/matsuokis/playlist/1M3WinGkwJ3CEmMD8JGSXe?si=ZQCGe8xrQCSME3NLfaA7yA) ) 
> 
> [@disasterganes on tumblr ](https://disasterganes.tumblr.com)


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